MIRI: Tourism here will benefit in a big way should Niah National Park be accorded World Heritage Site status by Unesco.
Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said it would automatically put Miri on the world map.
“Going to Niah from the city centre takes about one and a half hours and that will become a must-visit place whenever visitors come to Miri,” he said during a press conference after officiating at the International Conference on Niah National Park for World Heritage Site Nomination held at a hotel here, yesterday.
Abdul Karim said nomination was submitted in 2021 but that it entailed a lengthy process.
“The submission of nomination to achieve the recognition by Unesco is not an easy task and each country can only submit one nomination per year.
“The nomination dossier is scheduled for submission to the World Heritage Committee by February 2023 and that’s the final stage,” he said.
Abdul Karim is hopeful the national park will be able to achieve the status which in turn could benefit the surrounding communities in the Niah area.
“When visitors start coming in to Niah, there would be a lot of ways for the communities to generate income such as providing homestays, promoting their local delicacies and many other tourism products that can be sold to tourists,” he said.
Gazetted in 1974, the 3,139 hectare Niah National Park is renowned for the discovery of 40,000 year old human remains and features one of the world’s largest cave entrances, palaeolithic and neolithic burial sites and iron-age cave paintings.
The Niah National Park also offers attractions such as the Painted Cave and scenic view of the Great Cave around sunset, with two great black clouds inter-mingling for the nightly “changing of the guards” as thousands of swiftlets return to their nests while at the same time, an equal number of bats fly out to forage in the forest.
