What happened to Batu Sapi Heritage Park? 

SANDAKAN – Has the Sandakan Municipal Council (SMC) abandoned all efforts to protect and preserve an important heritage site in Sabah?

The Vibes visited Batu Sapi Heritage Park recently and found the beachside park, once beautiful and filled with joyous laughter of the public, is no longer even a shadow of its former self.

Instead of being full of visitors, the waterfront is now bereft of human life, with nearly every inch of its beach littered with garbage.

Back in 2019, SMC, the body tasked with protecting the site, had announced its temporary closure for upgrading works.

It was recently reopened to the public, but the latest conditions of the once pristine park had left this writer disappointed.

The entrance gate of the park was left open unattended, and there were empty and abandoned structures at the site choked with overgrown weeds and grass.

The writer spent roughly 20 minutes being assaulted by mosquitoes during the visit, and throughout the entire time, no security guards or management staff were in sight at the location.

There were incomplete structures, including one that used to be a gazebo but is now left with only four pillars standing, with no roof and flooring. 

This writer had previously participated in and covered a beach-cleaning activity, removing rubbish and debris brought in by the tide.

The Batu Sapi Heritage Park in Karamunting was once one of the main attractions for visitors in Sandakan, where a rock that looks like a three-legged buffalo can be viewed about a few metres away from the beach. 

The Batu Sapi – which translates as buffalo rock – federal constituency was named after this rock. The park is about 9km away from Sandakan town. 

Private initiative to rescue park

Karamunting Community Development Leader Datuk Chew Kok Woh said that he has been receiving complaints about the matter from public members for days. 

He believed that the incomplete structures were actually once completed facilities at the park, but materials such as the roof and all wooden structures had been stolen by thieves.

As such, he said he has been mobilising the private sector related to cleaning and environmental protection to come up with a plan to beautify, maintain, and upgrade the park. 

I cannot implement the plan as I wish (directly), as it is under the jurisdiction of SMC. I will propose a comprehensive plan to SMC soonest. 

“The park has a huge potential for tourism expansion, and it is important to maintain its heritage value,” he said. 

The Vibes has contacted SMC’s deputy president Faridah Giau for comments but was told to set an appointment next week. 

Sheraton Move disrupted efforts to upgrade?

Meanwhile, Karamunting Warisan rep George Hiew Vun Zin said that there had been plans to upgrade and beautify the heritage site by the federal constituency’s late MP Datuk Liew Vui Keong of Warisan.

Unfortunately, his plans were scuppered when the Pakatan Harapan federal administration was toppled during the Sheraton Move of 2020.

Liew became an opposition with limited funding, and the Warisan Plus government was also changed soon after that. All our plans were then stopped. SMC appears to be ignoring the park completely now,” he claimed. 

The Batu Sapi rock is a result of decades of erosion by the waves. 

An historical relic of Sandakan worthy of preservation, legend has it that in the 1920s, there was a huge crocodile in the area that had scared the villagers into hiding.

A large buffalo then appeared to protect the villagers by fighting the crocodile, during which the sky turned dark, and thunder struck both animals to death. The heroic buffalo’s body then had supposedly turned into a rock.

However, the buffalo’s three legs have been getting thinner over the last twenty years. – The Vibes, May 9, 2022