Gunung Buda National Park

The world largest roof pendants, Biocyclone Cave

Gunung Buda National Park
	*Area:* 6,235 ha *Locality:* Limbang Division *Year gazetted:* 2001

Description
The Gunung Buda National Park, in the Ulu Medalam, Limbang Division, encompasses, among others, the Mulu Formation and the Gunung Buda limestone massif, made of the Melinau Limestone. With the inclusion of Gunung Buda, almost the whole outcrop of Melinau limestone is included within the parks. Gunung Buda National Park, together with Gunung Mulu National Park, makes the protection of their unique flora, caves and karst much more effective. The habitat areas combined facilitate sufficient support for viable populations of unique animals and plants found in the Park.

The Mulu shale and sandstone have been deeply dissected by a dense dendritic drainage network flowing westward towards the limestone block. The streams sink underground at the limestone contact to resurge on the western side of the caves. In many cases, the stream sinks have formed spectacular hidden valleys.

Gunung Buda or White Mountain (in the language of Penan, one of Sarawak's indigenous tribes) is a 963 m high limestone massif directly north of Gunung Mulu National Park. The mountain houses many magnificient caves. The Melinau limestone includes unique flora, extensive tropical karst terrain and, to date, over 60 km of mapped caves. The Green Cathedral-Turtle Cave System, mapped for 22 km, is the second longest cave in Borneo and the fifth longest in Asia. Recent work has indicated that only a small percentage of the total cave passage has been explored.

The caves in the park are of international importance. They are large, well decorated with speleothems, contain a vast variety of unique and endemic fauna and are, geomorphologically, closely related to the Gunung Mulu National Park Cave Systems. Among many other attractive caves discovered so far are the Gua Ulat CinCin, the Snail Shell Cave System which has the greatest vertical relief in Borneo, and the East and North Buda Caves which include the deepest cave vertical drop in Borneo as well the world's largest examples of roof pendants.

Biodiversity
Flora in the park varies with land type, altitude and the degree of disturbance. The variety of vegetation types associated with the limestone blocks in the park includes the montane limestone forest on steep slopes, limestone scree forest on scree slopes, cliff vegetation on the limestone cliffs and specialized cave entrance vegetation around cave entrances.

The cave fauna is prolific. Aquatic cave species have been observed in the ground rivers, these include the cave flying fish (Nematabamis everetti) and an unknown species of cave cat fish.

This park will open to visitors sometime in the future.

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