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Taman Negara : Kelantan, Terengganu
& Pahang
In this 130-million year old rainforest, Taman Negara embodies a tropical haven of verdant undulating landscapes crossed by rivers with rapids and waterfalls, flicked within are secret caves set amidst rising ridges and mountains, An undisturbed natural paradise. \While the northern hemisphere was affected by die Ice Age until about 10,000 ‘ears ago and most other areas being geologically younger or changed by effects such as earthquakes. Peninsular Malaysia’s rainforest landscape has been geologically stable throughout.
Thus without any major geophysical upheaval, the Peninsular forest has evolved relatively uninterrupted since primordial times. In the north-west of the park lies Gunung Tahan. the tallest mountain in the Malay Peninsular at 2,187m. while Gunung Gagau at 1,376m straddles the borders of all 3 states that make up Taman Negara.
From on high, the park is a spectacular spread of rolling hills blanketed in lush greens. There are pristine rivers in Taman Negara boasting waterscapes from mirror-still reflections to wild rapids and scenic waterfalls. With exotic names such as Tembeling, Tahan, Terenggan and Relau, these sungai or rivers including the tributaries and streams together number in the hundreds.
Their waters range from crystal clear to coffee brown from the natural soil sediments. Rainforest rivers like these, which flow from peat sod virgin mountain forest catchments with no major human settlement or cultivation alongside, are now rare in the world. Several millions-of-years old limestone hill caves dot Taman Negara. Among them are legend-filled caves such as Gua Taat also Gua Bewah that has yielded Stone Age finds.
Taman Negara Rainforest is one of the most complex and rich ecosystems in the world. The lowland dipterocarp forest covering much of the park is home to about 14,000 species of plants and trees more than other forests in the world. The tallest tree in Southeast Asia, the buttressed tualang (Koompassia excelsa) grows here, typically reaching over 50m heights. The lush moist habitats support huge evergreen dipterocarp trees that lord over the forest canopy, with a whole range of different plant layers below.
At altitudes of 750m, montane forests of oaks, conifers, rattans and dwarf palms thrive. Above 1,500m, cloud forests’ emerge with typically short trees shrouded by clouds at least part of each day. To the untrained observer, the jungle is lust a vast expanse of green with little differentiation. But to the knowledgeable, each plant type is part of a treasure trove of all kinds of food, herbs, medicines, balms, fuels and resins as sell as household and building materials. Preserved well, the rainforest is of great life-giving value to humanity.
Huge or tiny and of every imaginable type of animal life, Taman Negara’s faunal community holds many secrets of the living ecosystem. The dipterocarp rainforests that cover most of the park are rich in amazingly diverse wildlife from great mammals to miniscule insects. Some species in Taman Negara, such as the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), are extremely rare and protected.
The diversity of life is no accident. Abundant food plants, water and habitat variety provide all the necessary living requirements for wildlife survival and variety. The circle of life is very fragile and interdependent. From the park’s great Asian elephants and primates to the lesser herbivores that feed the great carnivores, chief among them the Malayan tiger, and on to the big or small birds, reptiles and fish until the smallest tick and worm there is an important place for each in the scheme of life in Taman Negara.
From time immemorial, there have always been small groups of Aboriginal people or Orang Asli known as Batek, living in the jungles even before Taman Negara became a gazetted park, as well as many local Malay villagers in the surrounding areas and rivers.
Traditionally they have led subsistence and thus environment friendly lives entirely dependent on the jungle and local produce. The Orang Asli as well as the traditional Malay villagers have intimate knowledge of the jungle, and most jungle flora, fauna and features already have local names. To the Orang Asli especially, who have lived all their ancestral lives in the tingle, the rainforest is a veritable supermarket.
Where they obtain just about everything necessary for life from all parts of plants and animals that abound in the surrounding environment. And with their intimacy with the jungle, the Orang Asli as well as local Malay villagers share certain local beliefs about their jungle. There are things sacred and things taboo; and belief in the spirits or semangat that dwell among the trees and rocks, rivers and mountains the other indigenous inhabitants of the rainforests.
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