FURTHER OBJECTIVES

To establish any new botanic garden is a long term project which will mostly benefit our children and grandchildren rather than ourselves.

 

The Plant4Tawau project was established for multiple reasons;

• To educate visitors on the best practices for restoring damaged forest back to to the original diversity of Borneo’s native forests.

•  To provide wild food for the local wildlife at Tawau Hills especially hornbills, gibbons and langurs allowing visitors to  watch these animals at close quarters.

• To provide a living gene bank of Borneo figs freely available to both Malaysian and overseas researchers into fig ecology, taxonomy and biodiversity.

• To provide planting material for the much larger adjacent habitat enhancement project described here and other forest restoration projects in Borneo.

• To carry out field experiments on how best to plant strangling figs on oil palms to enhance the edge of oil palm estates for wildlife habitat throughout Borneo.

•  Our hope is that in 50 years time the Tawau Hills Fig Garden will provide a diverse wildlife rich forest garden which will attract students, researchers and tourists from around the world.

• Finally we hope that this living example of what is possible will stimulate the creation of hundreds of similar projects throughout Borneo. We can provide free fig seeds  and growing advice to anyone interested in similar projects and forest restoration.