KOTA KINABALU: About eight years ago, villagers in rural Kampung Gana in Kota Marudu were introduced to a self-sustaining community project that was also aimed at improving livelihoods.
Little did they know that the Sabah-EU REDD+ Project - funded by the European Union - could potentially provide an impactful contribution to Sabah’s food security, especially following last year’s pandemic.
REDD+ is an international framework that stands for "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, and the plus denotes conservation of existing forest carbon stocks, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
Through the project, the community, prior to this, had to depend on forest resources to sustain their livelihood, has built a certain level of capacity to develop their lands into profitable ventures.
Unlike other more commercial agricultural investments, theirs is small scale, community-based and arguably organic.
“Villagers have planted pineapples, coffee, organic vegetables and hill rice,” says project manager Alexander Minsong, a local of Kampung Gana.
“Some of them have grown “keladi cina” (yam) and mushrooms,” he said, adding that these can fetch a good price in the market and in turn, better income for the villagers.
He believes that in time, if the community continues to master the art of business, their small ventures could potentially grow to become a lot bigger.
Minsong said some situations might offer a push for the previously forest-dwelling community to build self-belief and resilience with one significant scenario being the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The importance of sustainable food resources and an undisrupted supply chain to consumers has been one of the key lessons learned ever since the global pandemic hit Sabah,” he said.
He said one of the positive changes in his community is the villagers’ excitement in gaining new knowledge, a skill needed if they wished to move forward.
Given the opportunity through the project, Kg Gana folks have every reason to become a small food bank in Sabah, growing healthy food to feed the ever-growing population and possibly beyond, Minsong added.
Apart from this, the project started in 2013 and is set to end by Nov 30 this year, also contributed to solving a major issue: clean water supply for folks in Kampung Gana, which comprises 10 sub-villages.
While the solution is simple with three gravity water systems built to meet the daily needs of villagers for the sustainability of the project, one activity around this has given a more meaningful and impactful input into it.
Villager Malinana Japin said they planted trees inside the forest for this purpose so that the trees would ensure that the water catchment stays resilient and healthy for generations to come.
The project has helped establish community cooperatives and carried out forest restoration initiatives as well.
One of the earliest project participants, Aendialiana Enam, recalls how the project held hands with the community almost every step of the way to ensure they started on the right footing.
Planting materials, seedlings and even proper training of various sorts including marketing were given, she said.
Participants of this project expressed how their lives have changed ever since they joined and learnt new things.
“It gives me a sense of accomplishment whenever I can make some earnings from the sale of crops I planted. It doesn’t matter if it’s RM5 or RM100,” shares Malinana.
Now that the community of Kampung Gana has developed a greater sense of self-confidence and purpose from small results attained, they express determination to go further and bigger.
They are also looking forward to welcoming a team of professionals from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) to teach them how to grow mushrooms.
During the eight-year term, the Project Team worked with communities living adjacent to forest reserves in three areas: four villages in Kinabatangan River Corridor, 10 villages in Kampung Gana in Kota Marudu, and 7 villages within the Kinabalu Ecolinc Zone.