Fees for mountain biking in FRIM

The Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) has announced the new charges of all its recreational facilities and services recently, and not only specifically for mountain biking. However upon advice from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE) and pending further approval from Cabinet, FRIM will revert to the previous rates.

For your information I wish to share with you the situation in FRIM. FRIM is not a public park, where the recreational facilities are for the use of the public and taken care of and maintained solely for the purpose by public funds. FRIM is a research centre but one which also opens its campus to the public such as joggers, bikers and other visitors for eco-tourism, recreational activities, environment education, meeting, wedding and other activities. A unique feature that is distinctively FRIM.

The fees and charges collected are channeled mainly towards the maintenance, upkeep and enhancement of its recreational and sports facilities. FRIM has some 70 contract staff working to help keep the campus clean. For safety and security reasons, FRIM engages the services of private security personnel and it has also installed CCTVs in sensitive areas around the campus. Apart from that, FRIM also ensures the whole of its campus area is covered by insurance to deal with any untoward incident or mishap and to safeguard the wellbeing of its visitors.

Maintaining the FRIM grounds which covers about 513 ha, ensuring safety of visitors as well as taking care that the forest remains healthy is not only costly but also very challenging. Besides the security and maintenance expenditures, FRIM also has to take into account the carrying capacity of its forest. Imposing a limit on the number of people using its various nature trails for trekking, jogging or mountain biking is crucial to enable the living systems to recover or to curb damage to its resources. Therefore, any increase in the fees serves to help us to both maintain and sustain the area.

Apart from this, FRIM has taken steps to improve its various facilities including building new toilets, providing more garbage disposal bins, repairing the pedestrian sidewalks, among others.

For mountain bikers, FRIM will undertake the following plan for 2012:

1. Identifying and opening another shorter but more challenging route for mountain biking;

2. Building shower facilities for cyclists to clean themselves and their bicycles at the waterfall area;

3. Providing bicycle parking space near the waterfall cafeteria area; and

4. Setting up a club house for mountain bikers at one of the bungalows near the FRIM Arboretum, where cyclists can meet, gather and exchange information.

With all the above considerations and plans, we hope the mountain bikers will not find any future increase in fees to be unreasonable, should there be one. We would also like to suggest that they consider getting the yearly pass of RM100, which works out to be only about RM2 per week.

Thank you for your feedback. FRIM takes all complaints and feedback from our stakeholders and clients very seriously. We also appreciate suggestions for improvement and we would like to thank you for your continued support and cooperation.

Best regards,
Norhayati Nordin
Head of Corporate Management Unit
Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM)
52109 Kepong, Selangor Darul Ehsan.