Deputy Premier Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian describes the towering flagpole at Dataran Ibu Pertiwi here as a gift to the people of Sarawak, thanks to a collaborative effort by petroleum industry giants Petros, Petronas and Shell Malaysia.
He said that the emergence of the landmark in the heart of Kuching is a grand gesture of celebration for the 60th anniversary of Sarawak’s Independence.
“The newly named Dataran Ibu Pertiwi proudly hosts the tallest flagpole in Southeast Asia, standing at an impressive 99 metres.
“This monumental structure is now officially recognised as the highest flag pole in South-east Asia,” he added in a post on his official Facebook page on Monday night.
There’s a new record for the tallest tree in the tropics, and the scientists who found it say it could add to our understanding of how and why some trees grow so tall.
A survey from an airplane in 2014 of the forests of Danum Valley Conservation Area in Malaysian Borneo helped University of Nottingham geographer Doreen Boyd and her colleagues pick out the sky-scraping tree that they’re calling Menara, the Malay word for “tower.”
But it wasn’t until Unding Jami, a local tree climber with the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership, or SEARPP, hoisted himself into the canopy of the yellow meranti (Shorea faguetiana) and lowered a measuring tape back to the ground that they were able to confirm the tree’s height at 100.8 meters (330.7 feet).
Tall Cylindrical structures are generally associated with a certain manifestation of the male ego.
Competing fossil fuel interests have apparently Shelled out the money to build this record tall cylindrical monument to ingratiate the Sarawak state leadership for reasons that can be divined.
What is does for hungry rural folk crying out for utilities and jobs is less apparent.
Perhaps it will entice tourists to view the tallest flagpole in Southeast Asia?
Or might such folk, who have just rediscovered the joys of post-pandemic travel, choose instead to to visit an even taller object of wondrous living nature that was discovered just before Covid at the Danum valley nature reserve, namely the tallest recorded tropical tree on the planet?
Dubbed the ‘Menara’ it stands as straight and higher at 100.8 meters.
