SABAH, the Land Below the Wind, is regarded by many nature enthusiasts as a dream destination. For conservationists, it’s a veritable haven for its diverse species and habitats.
The beauty of Sabah was recently celebrated with the gazettement of Tun Mustapha Park (TMP), bringing much joy to conservationists and nature travellers throughout the world. Measuring 900,000 hectares and covering more than 50 islands, TMP spans across three Sabah districts — Kudat, Kota Marudu, and Pitas.
“The gazettement is just the first step to ensure that the largest marine park in Malaysia fulfils its potential for conservation and community,” begins Joannie Jomitol, team leader for WWF-Malaysia Kudat team.
“All the hard work towards the gazettement of TMP over the past 13 years was just the beginning. Now that it has finally been gazetted, it represents a new chapter and requires all parties to take it to the next level,” she adds.
WWF-Malaysia, together with Sabah Parks, had been continuously reaching out to engage with the local communities in TMP and this will continue beyond the gazettement and into the future. “We’ve been working hand-in-hand since 2006 to bring about the gazettement of TMP,” adds Joannie, who’s been working on local community engagement throughout Sabah for her last decade’s employment with WWF-Malaysia.
The community collaboration includes patrolling, relationship-building with local communities, setting up the Interim Steering Committee for TMP, and capacity building for the communities as well as for staff working on the ground.
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE TRAINING
In July 2016, 50 representatives from different communities under the Tun Mustapha Park Community Conservation Group (TMPCCG) travelled from remote islands to Kudat at the invitation of WWF-Malaysia, to attend a social enterprise training aimed at providing capacity building in entrepreneurship skills.
“Investing in building capacity and increasing knowledge in sustainability are vital in conservation. At WWF-Malaysia, we believe that safeguarding the environment involves everyone — from the public, to the private sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), industries and the local communities. Hence, we work very closely with TMPCCG, the biggest group of community-based organisations working on conservation of the environment to protect marine and terrestrial flora and fauna within the TMP,” says Joannie.
She shares that at present, the community groups in the established TMPCCG include Persatuan Belia Anak Taritipan (Anbatar), Kelab Belia Tigabu (KBT), Banggi Youth Club (BYC), Kudat Turtle Conservation Society (KTCS), Maliangin Island Community Association (MICA), Persatuan Belia Muda Tigabu (PBMT), and community groups from Kampung Berungus, Matunggong, and Balambangan Island.”
Formed in June 2014, the TMPCCG has gathered experience in marine education, awareness and livelihood programmes. Anbatar’s Sabarudin Samba saw the social enterprise training as an opportunity to incorporate these skills and knowledge into social entrepreneurships, where the benefits were equally shared amongst members and communities involved.
“In all the years that we’ve had workshops and trainings as part of community engagement, we never had one like this on entrepreneur-related capacity building and hopefully this will not be the last. Anbatar sees the benefits of this training to the communities, particularly in a marine protected area,” says Sabarudin.
The objectives of the training were to provide basic entrepreneurship skills to the TMPCCG members, and an opportunity to learn the Social Enterprise Business Model, which included financing and marketing. WWF-Malaysia believed this was an important step for community-based organisations (CBOs) to take, for them to recognise alternative livelihoods while keeping in view the importance of sustainability and conservation, which would be vital in moving forward with the recently gazetted TMP.
TRAINERS’ OBSERVATION
“We’ve been exposed to social enterprise before but this training is new in the sense that the workshop participants are communities who have hands-on issues to work on as they’re facing real challenges on the ground,” says Roslin Mohd Daud, programme leader for Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC).
Combining both conservation and social enterprise targets in mind, WWF invited MaGIC to develop a training programme specifically for TMPCCG. MaGIC sent two training groups - Tandemic and myHarapan - to give a four-day workshop on the fundamentals of social entrepreneurship, design thinking and problem solving, bringing products to the market, and financing social enterprises.
“We can definitely see the effort coming from the communities and their eagerness and passion in solving issues they face within their communities. We believe capacity building is a continuous effort and hope our engagement with the communities of TMPCCG doesn’t end here, and that relationship-building continues with them,” adds Roslin.
According to Tiu Kian Wee of Tandemic, speaking on behalf of his team, it was initially a challenge due to the adjustments needed in place for both parties — the trainers and the participants — to be able to understand each other’s concept of entrepreneurship.
After adjustments were made from their original programme, he confides that they were able to integrate personal experiences and skills of the community participants with their training and amazing and constructive ideas surfaced.
“This isn’t a first for Tandemic to be working with local rural communities but we’re excited to see what’s next in line for the communities in TMP. We’re hopeful and feel optimistic about the ideas and outcome from this training,” says Tiu.
Discussions included building more secure enclosures for sea cucumber farming at a much lower cost, becoming a supplier for organic farming, and working on ecotourism packages. The participants were able to identify the underlying problems happening within their communities with the final goal to empower themselves and their family members to resolve the issues themselves.
Nothing would be possible without the initiatives and interest of the community participants themselves, believes Yusuf Jaffar of myHarapan, who says: “The result from the training highly depends on the participants’ own initiatives and willingness to follow-up from here onwards. However, myHarapan can see the effort put into this training and we feel encouraged from what we’ve observed.
“We’re feeling positive and hopeful that the training has empowered the communities to better themselves and at the same time, will bring further developments to the conservation of TMP.”
PARTICIPANTS’ INSIGHTS AND LEARNING
Equally as important are responses from the participants themselves who, at the end of the day, were the targeted beneficiaries. A session with the communities allowed them to voice their opinions on the training and propose a way forward from the four-day session.
The community representatives felt that their business targets differ slightly according to the expertise and knowledge of each village, with the main focus revolving around the importance of conservation and adhering to sustainable practices. Therefore, the training had benefited them in specific ways in line with their existing businesses.
While organic farming was prominent in Balambangan Island, Tigabu Island was tapping into the richness of sea cucumbers in and around the island. Both communities later had a clearer view of their target market and how their particular markets and their islands can benefit.
Participants from Karakit Island and Wanita Pulau Omadal (WAPO) group from Semporna were able to apply the training to their existing handicraft work. While from different districts of Sabah, both communities use recycled items such as dried pandan leaves, plastic waste, and raw materials to make handbags, bookmarks, and mats. Their main aim was to spread the message that recycled items and waste material were valuable and to encourage communities to make use of materials from their surroundings.
The training had made them realise what is lacking in their respective businesses. Karakit Islanders felt the need to expand their knowledge in the development of technology, while WAPO needed an operation centre for a systematic process in order to push their business even further.
Taritipan village, with representatives from Anbatar, focused on building upon their existing work on wetland forests. After understanding social enterprise a little further, their goal has become more specific to venture into ecotourism, targeting international tourists as well as locals who wish to learn more about wetland conservation. Having identified their lack of experience in ecotourism, their hope was to receive mentorship and guidance from an industry expert.
Mohd Omar Bural from the Banggi Youth Club (BYC), echoed business dreams of venturing into ecotourism as that it would help in terms of managing the marine ecosystem as well as increasing their income, particularly for fishermen. The training had provided him with the knowledge of identifying criterion and needs from donors, and given him the opportunity to brainstorm on products to market.
“One of BYC’s activities is coral replantation and an idea I’ve come up with during this training is to build upon this activity by relating the costs of every planted coral to paying customers. This way, not only will our conservation efforts be sustained, BYC’s aim to restore corals and areas impacted by past fish bombing activities can be achieved,” says Mohd Omar.
The participants agreed on their expectation from the training. This consisted of gaining knowledge in social enterprise in order to expand their existing businesses for greater impact, influencing the building of their communities, and building personal exposure.
“Our shared common vision is to help our communities to alleviate poverty by developing a detailed business plan, share our recently-gained knowledge on social entrepreneurship and invite fellow community members to join in on our business ventures for a united development. We hope to expand our existing business to a wider customer-base. Most of us are representatives from remote islands within the TMP and we feel that the workshop has helped us broaden our target market to different areas of TMP, bigger towns and even to the international market,” continues Mohd Omar.
OF BUSINESS AND CONSERVATION
While it might seem that there’s a disconnection between business and conservation, WWF-Malaysia believes that social entrepreneurship skills strengthened the social economy so communities wouldn’t depend solely on marine resources for a living.
“This was the first training and a basic introduction. It’s an opportunity for us to identify the needs for the communities to further expand their skills. We feel proud of all trainers and participants who came together to create positive outcomes and we’ll definitely look for future opportunities,” says Joannie.
Concluding, she reiterates WWF-Malaysia’s mission: “Conservation isn’t just a job. It’s our mission to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. Together, everything’s possible.”