RHINO WALK HERALDS INVESTMENT FAIR

THERE were no prizes to be won. But about 8,000 people turned up in red at the Likas sports complex in Kota Kinabalu on April 15 to walk 4km (2.5 miles), sending a red alert to Sabahans to help save the last 200 Sumatran rhinoceros from extinction.

Thirty of them are in Sabah’s jungle. The Rhino Walk sponsored by Sime Darby, one of Malaysia’s biggest companies with vast oil palm estates in Sabah, heralded Malaysia’s unit trust week in Kota Kinabalu which starts on April 20. Prime Minister Najib Razak is to launch the fair which is expected to draw 200,000 people.

Saving wildlife and saving for a financial future seem to go hand-in-hand, according to Idris Kechot, an executive director of Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad, the nation’s unit trust company. “We are asking the public to conserve wildlife and nature. At the same time we are educating them on the need to conserve their financial resources for future use,” he said.

But Sabahans are great savers. Hamad Kamad Kama Piah, president and group chief executive of Permodalan Nasional Berhad, Malaysia’s investment company, said 1.08m of them have bought 12 billion of the 144.5 billion units in his trust funds. They represent about a third of Sabah’s population and their investment, the fifth largest in the country, is about a third of the resource-rich Borneo island state’s GDP of 36 billion ringgit ($12 billion).

Sime Darby through its foundation has pledged 70m ringgit for a Borneo rhino sanctuary in the Tabin forest reserve in Lahad Datu, on the east coast of Sabah, set up by the Sabah Forestry Department and the Borneo Rhino Alliance. It is paying 11.4m ringgit for the first six years of the project from 2009 to 2015.

Rhinos have been hunted to extinction for their prized horns which are wrongly thought to be an aphrodisiac and life-saving medicine in traditional Chinese herbal remedies. Scientists say rhino horns contain keratin, a protein found in human skin, hair and nails, that does not have any such cures.

A donation boot has been set up at the fair at the Likas sports complex for the public to donate to the rhino conservation project. Donations are exempted from tax. The annual unit trust week, the 13th in a series, is being held for the first time in Sabah. Twelve companies including Maybank, Malaysia’s biggest bank, will be exhibiting their products.

Visitors to the fair stand a chance of winning some of the many prizes which include three cars: a Toyota Hilux, a Ford Fiesta and a Perodua Myvi. (Insight Sabah)