Nature and Wildlife

Sarawak has a whopping 56 totally protected areas, 37 gazetted national parks, five wildlife sanctuaries and 14 nature reserves. Its rainforests are the size of Austria.

Sarawak’s rainforests house one of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems. Home to the world’s largest flower, the Rafflesia (that can grow to the size of a coffee table), squirrels and snakes that fly, deer the size of cats, plants that eat insects (and small animals). The orangutan, proboscis monkey, hornbill, the Rajah Brooke butterfly and the silverleaf monkey, all call Sarawak home. Experts believe that there are some species of flora and fauna yet to be discovered.

Sarawak also has the most number of Important Birding Areas (IBAs) in Malaysia, with a great portion of Borneo’s 650 bird species having been recorded here.

Mulu National Park is a priceless UNESCO World Heritage Site, in a league of its own as it qualifies for all four of the World Heritage criteria. Fewer than twenty World Heritage areas have managed this feat. Bako National Park traces its first visitors’ footprint to 1957, making it one of Malaysia’s oldest National Parks.  Niah National Park is famed for Sarawak’s genesis, with evidence of human presence from 40,000 years ago discovered in the form of Paleolithic and Neolithic burial sites.