TAMAN NEGARA PAHANG: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

TAMAN NEGARA PAHANG:  THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE




Taman Negara National Park is undoubtly one of the world's famous oldest rainforest. The 150 million-year old park is part of the  Titiwangsa Range which in turn become the back bone of Peninsular Malaysia,
The park was gazetted as a national park in 1938. Before that year, nobody really lived in the Kampung Kuala Tahan. All the Malay were actually staying in Kampung Simpon, which is inside the park area.
The current site of Mutiara Taman Negara resort is the Malay settlement before the park was gazetted.
They were given land in Kuala Tahan by the government when they have to move  from the Kampung Simpon, to make way for the huge park development.
Not many families though, and most of them become employees of the Wildlife Department.
The Malays during that period had a very clever way of moving their belongings on the other side of the Tembeling riverbank.
They waited for the year-end rainy season, as the river will be flooded up to the top, so it will easier to move their stuff. During normal season, the river will be very shallow.
However, the aborigines namely the Bateq maintained their villagers in the park.
Foreigners start coming into Taman Negara Pahang since its open its doors for tourism in 1938.
Before that, the foreigners were already entering the park but to hunt animals as it was known as a game reserve.
Many lions, tigers, elephant were hunt down and killed by them.
However, the decision by the three sultanate of Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu changed that situation and Taman Negara was born in 1938.
And animal hunting had become the thing of the past.
Nowdays, all the flora and fauna of Taman Negara were protected by the law.
Now, the foreigners can no longer hunt and harm the animals, they can only sighted them and photographed them. Picture of foreigners with their trophies (dead animals) can be seen in the archive.

Throughout 1940s to 1950s, Kampung Kuala Tahan is still a small village with only a few wooden houses.
Only a walking trail join each houses which were built not far from each other. The kampung is still thick with primary forest, same as the next door Taman Negara.
Kampung Kuala Tahan is sited at the intersection where the two mighty rivers the Tembeling and the Tahan meet.
Previously, the kampung is not accessible by land, thus river is still the main mode of transportation until early 1990s. Logging track were built to carry logs from the upper river of Tembeling (the Pahang state land) to Jerantut. Eventually, the 85km logging track were completely tarred in 1998 from Kuala Tahan to Jerantut town. This saw more villagers buying cars for transportation, rather than spending 3 hours on the boatride from Kuala Tahan to Kuala Tembeling.

The completed tarred road also opened more opportunities for more investment in tourism development.
Before 1990s, there were only Taman Negara Resort and a few chalet operators in Kuala Tahan.
However, with the accessibility of transportation and the cost is cheaper, more chalets opened up.
Among the firsts were Tahan Guest House, Durian Chalets, Teresek River View, Tembeling River View and Ecoton Chalet.
If those days, the number of hostel and chalet operated can be counted by hands, but not anymore.
It has mushrooming tremendously and you need counting gadget to count them.
Now, there were hostels, guesthouses, chalets, homestays and resorts.
More detail in the next post.