Qualla: Maliau Basin

Maliau Basin: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. A pilot flying over central Sabah in the 1940s would have seen something extraordinary below: a vast, roughly circular depression in the jungle canopy, ringed by steep escarpments, with no roads leading in and no settlements visible within. Maliau Basin had been there for millions of years, but the modern world did not know what lay inside it. The 588-square-kilometre catchment surrounding the Maliau River was so remote, so walled off by its own geography, that it earned the name Sabah's Lost World. Even today, significant portions of the basin remain unexplored by scientists.

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maliau Basin: A Fortress of Green

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. The basin sits near the geographic center of Sabah, in the Tongod District of the Sandakan Division. Its defining feature is the rim: a ring of steep cliffs and ridges that encircle the interior like the walls of a natural fortress, rising to Mount Lotung at 1,667 metres. Within ...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maliau Basin: Protection Before Exploration

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob and Stephanie Levy from Townsville, Australia, CC BY 2.0. In an unusual reversal of the typical conservation story, Maliau Basin was protected before it was fully explored. The Sabah Foundation, known as Yayasan Sabah, designated it a conservation area in 1981. Sixteen years later, in 1997, the Sabah State Assembly gazetted the basin as...

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Image: Rob and Stephanie Levy from Townsville, Australia | CC BY 2.0

Maliau Basin: Scientists in the Lost World

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2011, the Maliau Basin Studies Centre opened, providing researchers with a permanent base for fieldwork in one of the planet's least-disturbed ecosystems. Universities from across the globe have conducted expeditions here. Sheffield University, Griffith University, and Otago U...

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Image: Sadalmelik | CC BY-SA 3.0

Maliau Basin: The World Outside the Walls

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Maliau Basin exists in tension with the world beyond its escarpments. Sabah's economy depends heavily on timber and palm oil, industries that have transformed vast tracts of Borneo's lowland forest into plantations. The basin's protected status has kept it intact, but the contras...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0