The longest river in Sabah, the Sungai Kinabatangan drains over 17,000sq km of land area. The name comes from the early Chinese settlements on the banks of this long river, hence the Malay term for “Chinese, Long River”. The settlements originated with the collection and trading of rattan, bee’s wax and edible bird’s nests centuries ago.

Originally under the rule of the Sultan of Sulu, the Kinabatangan and the surrounding region came under the British North Borneo Chartered Company, and eventually became part of modern Malaysia. In 1950’s logging began in large areas of lower Kinabatangan. Agriculture, in the form of oil palm plantations, cocoa estates and assorted food crop smallholdings began to flourish in recent decades. Freshwater fisheries have also sprung up in the Lower Kinabatangan, providing many native residents with an important protein supply.

The Kinabatangan has its source in forested mountains, and flows down through sandstone hills, limestone outcrops and fertile lowlands before reaching the swamps and the floodplain. The lower Kinabatangan is inhibited by natives like the Tambansia, Idahan and Dusun, as well as Chinese and Malays from Sulu, Bugis and Brunei.

The forests flanking the Kinabatangan teem with wildlife, including mammals like elephant, gaur, rhinoceros, deer, bearded gibbon, mouse deer, proboscis monkey, macaque, gibbon and orang utan. Hornbills, pigeons, swiftlets and numerous brilliant forest birds flit about, while the waters of the river itself feed darters, egrets, storks, herons, kingfish-otter frolic in the shallows and about 40 species.