Gunung Mulu National Park
Designation
ASEAN Heritage Parks
Body
| Gunung Mulu National Park - Crown jewel of Sarawak's protected areas |
| Gigantic limestone caves, tropical karsts, and very high biodiversity are the more internationally recognized features of Gunung Mulu, the second highest mountain peak in Sarawak. It is the largest national park in the State and is considered the "jewel in the crown" of Sarawak's expanding network of protected areas. Its tropical karsts are the most studied in the world and its large limestone caves are the roosting areas of millions of swiftlets and bats. Gunung Mulu National Park is one of Malaysia's World Heritage Sites. The Park was first constituted on 3 October 1974, and opened to the public in 1985. Gunung Mulu in Sarawak, Borneo and Mt. Kinabalu in Sabah, both of which are ASEAN Heritage Parks of Malaysia, are not more than 300 kilometers apart but have different features. These two Heritage Parks encompass almost all the land ecosystem types in Borneo. Mt. Kinabalu is one massive granite mountain rising sharply to some 4,100 meters while Gunung Mulu has varied geological formations dominated by a large sandstone mountain-the 2,376-meter high Gunung Mulu-and two smaller limestone mountains: Gunung Api (1,750 meters) and Gunung Benarat (1,585 meters). The 52,865-hectare (528.65 square kilometers) National Park lies astride the watershed between Sungai Tutuh, which marks the Park's southern boundary and Sungai Medalam in the north (ASEAN/JICA/UNEP, undated). It is contiguous to the Medalam Protected Forest. Its steep ridges and escarpments, and karsts are among the most interesting in Southeast Asia. |