Agritourism is increasingly viewed as an anchor for sustainable development in Sabah, Malaysia, extending beyond its well-known and established wildlife-based tourism industry. This commentary considers a future role of agritourism that, when combined with targeted conservation practices, has the potential to aid in the broader effort to protect Sabah’s rich biodiversity and support local indigenous economies. While Rafflesia, which is frequently located on private land, is an iconic species that has long attracted international visitors, many regions in Sabah possess untapped potential for eco-focused agritourism within natural landscape settings. Agritourism that protects forest could also act as an impetus to engage in the re-wilding of areas via the re-introduction of declining and rare species. Amidst the global appeal for protecting the world’s largest flower, we argue that the protection of Rafflesia for broader conservation and economic benefits is more likely to be enabled and sustained with the development of a vision for agritourism that also facilitates the development of conservation-oriented policy in support of conserving rare flora in local community settings.
Pimid et al. (Sun,) studied this question.