UNESCO World Heritage Sites are listed according to their distinguished universal values. Once the first dossiers are submitted UNESCO would start investigating. Very likely, we will get some advice to ‘brand’ the sites according to their universal value and to put our conservation plans in place. But what are the chances of successful nomination?

Just one example to illustrate my point. The Kinta Valley is a world heritage for its tin mining and therefore industrial heritage; that’s the term of reference, the ‘brand’. However, extensive tin mining in Kinta followed the ‘demise’ of Larut tin fields. A stronger nomination would then be to include Taiping as the first mining town with its strong heritage. Link it to the Kinta Valley which produced 22 mining towns with their illustrious communities, with Ipoh being the city of pride. The Kinta Valley pioneered the modern development of Malaysia. Malaysia was developed with the wealth from the Kinta Valley. Ipoh’s strength lies in its architecture, monumental colonial edifices and modern international style of the Danish architect B.M. Iversen in Ipoh, with its relatively intact streetscape, despite current demolitions of pre-war shophouses. Most important of all, Ipoh the capital city has her people, resident and abroad, who are proud of their hometown heritage. They will lend their support to the nomination. Ipoh boasts of unique features like the surrounding limestone hills, one with ancient rock paintings, and one with the fossils of a leopard in the roof of Gua Naga Mas; each group of hills has unique scientific and educaitonal values.

What’s missing are sites of industrial activities: gravel pump tin mines, dredges, the cave tin mine in Gua Lanno and the ‘flying foxes’, the giant water pipeline of Gopeng, workshops and iron foundries, the supporting traders and services which have transfromed themselves.

How good and rich a story we can tell and how much heritage we have preserved will determine if our nominations are good enough.

One begs to ask: how will the listing benefit the people? Is tourism the only game in town?

Compared to caves in East Malaysia, those in the peninsula are only babies in terms of length. And on a world ranking they don’t compare. And no other single cave in Asia has a WHS.

Would be better to consider a group of Perak’s limestone hills/caves rather than one single one.

They were not specifically mentioned, only alluded to under Taiping and Kinta, in the ‘nature’ and ‘nature and culture’ categories above. For all we know, only the flatlands are identified.

Hence, the fifth location for World Heritage Status is our LIMESTONE OUTCROPS (Kinta Valley Hills) and Maxwell Hill (Bukit Larut).

Gua Tempurung may be the most well-known but there are other structures of equal significance and importance.

Please do not ignore the caves (and hill range) of the Lenggong area where significant archaeological finds have been found.

The sixth location for a World Heritage site should be our MANGROVE SWAMPS.

Matang was gazetted a Forest reserve in 1906 but it should be made a World Heritage Site to be protected against encroaching development.

The USA has its Everglades (wetlands) and India has its Sundarbans National Park (world’s largest mangrove swamp).

What about Perak leading the charge in the conservation of both our mangrove areas and limestone outcrops?