The Maliau Basin is an area in Sabah which represents a geological catchment surrounding the Maliau River and located around south central Sabah. It was designated as a conservation area in 1981. In 1997 it was gazetted as a Class 1 Protection Forest Reserve with a total of 588.4 sq. kilometres. The area features Mt. Lotung (1,667 metres), the seven-tier Maliau Falls and Lake Linumunsut.
The Basin was discovered in 1947 by a pilot but it was only in 1988 that a major scientific expedition was organised to explore it. The saucer-shaped Basin has an almost circular perimeter, clearly delimited around by cliffs or very steep slopes reaching up to 1,500 metres high. Mt. Lotung is deemed to be the highest point on the north rim at over 1,800 metres high. The Basin, which is 25 km. in diameter, resembles a volcanic caldera, but it is actually a sedimentary formation mainly of gently-inclined beds of sandstone and mudstone.
The Basin represents a single catchment and is drained by tributaries of the Maliau River, one of which descends as a series of waterfalls known as the Maliau Falls. The River then gorges out into the Kuamut River which in turn feeds into the Kinabatangan River, the longest in Sabah at 560 kilometres.
The first major expedition to Lake Linumunsut (Sabah's only true lake) at the northern part of the Basin was conducted in 2001. Though only a small percentage of studies have been done by then, more new species of flora and fauna were already discovered. In 2002, HRH Prince Henrik of Denmark con-celebrated the ground breaking for setting up the Maliau Basin Field Studies Centre with the Director of Sabah Foundation, a large, semi-governmental Foundation which manages the Basin as State resources for the people.
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