Masidi said that the local communities may prefer the bridge, on humanitarian grounds, for them to have access to Sandakan or Lahad Datu for public healthcare services. “Going to Sandakan, for example, takes a day by boat and involves high transportation costs.”

Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) Director Benoit Goosens, for one, said the Sukau Bridge was not necesssary. “It would create a bottleneck for species to move from one fragmented forest to another forest.”

Sukau Assemblyman Saddi Abdul Rahman is pushing for the bridge project. “The NGOs opposing the bridge project don’t care for the poor people in the rural areas.”

“The people are as important as the wildlife.”

Sabah Conservation Trust (SCT) CEO Rahimatsah Amnat, in a media update on the growing controversy in the social media, thinks that an alternative solution may be needed to bring modern public healthcare facilities to the folks in the Kinabatangan interior. “One way was to build clinics near where the people live.”

The Sabah Government has already pledged via three Species Action Plans (SAP) that the construction of major bridges and highways would not be permitted in the Kinabatangan Corridor of Life (CoL), reminded Rahimatsah. “Such construction, if permitted, would only break up the CoL.”

“Kinabatangan was already seriously fragmented.”

The three SAP, he reminded, were the Elephant Action Plan, the Orang Utan Action Plan, and the Sumatra Rhino Action Plan. “The Sabah Development Corridor Blueprint also clearly mentions that sustainable development via environmental conservation would be the guiding principle of the Sabah Government.”

The politicians want to build a bridge and road or eco-viaduct to provide the people better access for healthcare and quality of life, he conceded. “The conservation groups are against any such projects.”

The two options proposed by the politicians, warned Rahimatsah, break up the connectivity of the Kinabatangan CoL. “Spending RM175 million just to build an eco-viaduct 8 km downstream for an animal crossing, as a second option, doesn’t make sense. Both options, the bridge/highway and eco-viaduct, will break up the 26,102 hectares Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is divided into 10 lots.”

Local elephant expert Raymond Alfred chipped in that Option 2, although presented as an eco-viaduct, was very expensive at RM175 million. “Lot 1, where the eco-viaduct has been proposed, is a narrow bottleneck – about 1km of good forest – for the elephants and Orang Utan.”

“Just the construction of the eco-viaduct alone will cause massive disturbance when the workers, lorries, bulldozers and excavators come in. Lot 1 is good forest which the elephants and Orang Utan love.”

Rahimatsah thinks that the RM175 million could be put to better use as wildlife was dynamic and follow the fruiting seasons while the eco-viaduct was static. “The eco-viaduct is fixed while the wildlife move around.”

“In that case, the larger animals would not use the eco-viaduct. It would be a waste of the RM175 million.”