Sabah Forestry Department chief conservator, Mashor Mohd Jaini has said that the success of the tropical rainforest protection and conservation programme in the state was due to the forest, wildlife conservation and parks enactments.

According to Mashor, over 50 per cent or 3.9 million hectares of land in Sabah have been earmarked for forest reserves and wildlife conservation areas.

"Through sustainable forest management policies, sufficient land area could be reserved and managed for conservation," he said at the closing of the Environmental Education Course for Teachers here today.

He has also said that the state government had also decided that 30 per cent of the tropical rainforest area in the state would be gazetted as fully protected areas by 2025.

Challenges facing sustainable forest management include low returns, the high cost of forest conservation, illegal occupation, and farming on forest reserve land.

Mashor highlighted the Deramakot Forest Reserve as a fine example of a natural reserve which had been certified well managed by an international certification body, the Forest Stewardship Council Standard' in 1997.