AFTER a decade of trying, Sarawak has still to get its most famous archaeological site, the Niah Cave, listed as a Unesco world heritage site.

Assistant Urban Development and Resources Minister Len Talif Salleh said efforts were hampered by rules such as the one-application per-year limit for each country

“We (Sarawak) have to go through the country (Putrajaya),” he told reporters today when accompanying Deputy Chief Minister Awang Tengah Ali Hassan to open the Forest Department’s new headquarters at the new Bangunan Baitulmakmur II in Petrajaya.

Len said the state was in discussion with the federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry to advance the Niah application “further up the (national application) list”.

“We want (the federal government) to make it a priority. We hope the minister from Sarawak can assist,” he said, referencing Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Nancy Shukri.

“Every state is fighting to have its site listed.”

The state submitted its first application in 2010. Sarawak Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah last year said he hoped the cave would be a Unesco site in five years.

Karim had disclosed then that he had received orders from Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg to prepare a cabinet paper on the Niah project with the secondary aim of making the historical and cultural site a tourist attraction.

The cave in the Niah National Park, about 73km from the Miri, was home to prehistoric man.

A 1954 dig led by Sarawak Museum curator Tom Harrison found significant archaeological evidence concerning early Pleistocene man’s habitat in Sarawak.

Evidence also seemed to indicate the cave continuously served as a human dwelling from about 40,000BC until the 19th century.

Earlier this year saw the return to thesgtate of some 100 skeletons that were dug up in the cave and brought to the American universities for research.

Some of the bones are expected to be exhibited in the new Sarawak museum when it opens

Niah Cave would be the second Unesco world heritage site in Sarawak, after the Gunung Mulu caves in the Mulu national park. – December 11, 2020.