He acknowledged that this might necessitate “a lot of compensation” to house or landowners affected by the project, but said it would cost the government more to build new roads through protected areas.
“I think we can just expand the routes that we have. We’ll spend more money acquiring land and cutting hills (if we go through forest areas), and that is not good for our environment.
“This will be faster to construct than having a new alignment which will take longer and be a more tedious job,” he said after launching the International Conference on Heart of Borneo here today.
Wildlife conservation expert Benoit Goossens recently warned of adverse effects for both human and wildlife if the Pan Borneo Highway is allowed to cut through protected forest areas in Sabah.
He said several stretches of the highway would cut across Class 1 forest reserves which consist of grazing fields and migration routes for wildlife such as elephants, sun bears and clouded leopards.
He warned that this would drastically increase human-wildlife conflict and lead to a high number of collisions with animals as well as further fragmentation of forest reserves.
He added that it would be better for the highway to go through settled or developed areas as it would enhance economic opportunities there.
Shafie said Sabah should emulate Sarawak, which has taken the approach of expanding existing stretches.
“I saw it in Sarawak when I was there during the previous government,” he said. “One of the policies encouraged is to just expand on the existing roads.
“The way forward for us is to build on this, because the people really need the infrastructure to ensure they can have access to nearby schools and markets.”
The Senallang assemblyman said houses or land might be located at the side of such roads, but that the authorities would work things out with the affected communities as best they could.
He also said he had raised the issue with Putrajaya.
“I hope they take it seriously because I told them we shouldn’t chop all the hills, trees and mountains.”