Welcome to the Web Portal of the Sabah Forestry Department! This portal serves as an information gateway for those of you who want to know more about this Department and forestry issues in Sabah. We try to be as informative as possible for a wide range of visitors. If you are a forest manager, a policy maker, a conservationist, an ecologist, a statistician, etc, we have some information for you. You will realise as you surf around our portal that the Sabah Forestry Department has several strategic thrusts. One of them is to manage all forest reserves in the state of Sabah according to the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) principle. This management system is based on our SFM model, in Deramakot Forest Reserve.

Therefore, using Deramakot as a bench mark, we are pursuing the extension of the model to all 27 Forest Management Units (FMU), i.e., all forest reserves in Sabah. Since the official launching of our SFM policy in 1997, we have achieved some success, which includes: having proper management plans for the commercial forest reserves (Class II) and implementation of reduced impact logging. We still have a long way to go but the journey towards achieving good forest management has at least started. We have also enhanced several elements in the department's administrative tools to achieve our goals. Some of these are in the areas of legislation, protection of forest resources (e.g. against fire), forestry research and development, training, recreation and environmental education.

In this updated version of the portal, we have included several online interactive features, such as online payment, online quiz, email and SMS alert, etc. These should enhance your experience of visiting this portal. We will update and improve this portal from time to time. Therefore, please do not forget to register as a user of this portal to receive regular updates.

Please feel free to contact our webmaster should you have any question, comment or suggestion.

Thank you and happy surfing!

DATUK SAM MANNAN, Director of Forestry, November, 2007