By Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, Chairman Alliance for a Safe Community
KOTA KINABALU: The increasing number of incidents involving hikers and climbers becoming lost, injured, or even losing their lives in forests, hills, and mountains across the country is a matter of serious concern.
Recent cases have once again highlighted the risks associated with hiking and hill-climbing activities, particularly in remote and challenging terrain.
While outdoor recreation is a healthy and beneficial activity that should be encouraged, safety must always remain the highest priority.
Search and rescue operations for missing hikers often involve substantial manpower and resources from the Fire and Rescue Department, the Royal Malaysia Police, Forestry Department, Civil Defence Force, mountain guides, volunteers, and local communities.
These operations can stretch over several days and expose rescuers themselves to considerable risks.
In view of these recurring incidents, I urge the relevant authorities to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing standard operating procedures (SOPs) governing hiking, trekking, and hill-climbing activities nationwide.
Among the measures that should be considered are:
1. Mandatory registration of hikers before entering designated trails, forests, hills, and mountains.
2. Improved monitoring systems through digital check-in and check-out mechanisms to ensure that authorities are immediately alerted when hikers fail to return as scheduled.
3. Stricter requirements for licensed mountain guides on challenging and high-risk routes.
4. Periodic safety audits and risk assessments of popular hiking trails to identify hazards such as landslides, fallen trees, damaged pathways, poor signage, and dangerous terrain.
5. Installation of additional directional signs, distance markers, emergency location points, and warning notices along hiking routes.
6. Greater use of technology, including GPS tracking applications, emergency beacons, drones, and geolocation systems to facilitate rapid rescue efforts.
7. Enhanced public education campaigns on hiking safety, including the importance of not hiking alone, checking weather conditions, carrying sufficient food and water, informing family members of travel plans, and bringing emergency communication devices.
8. Development of a national database on hiking-related incidents to enable authorities to better understand risk factors and formulate evidence-based safety policies.
Hikers themselves must also exercise personal responsibility. Many incidents occur because individuals underestimate the challenges of a trail, ignore weather warnings, fail to prepare adequately, venture into unfamiliar areas without guides, or become separated from their groups.
Every preventable tragedy should serve as a lesson for all stakeholders. The objective is not to discourage hiking activities but to ensure that Malaysians can enjoy nature safely and responsibly.
The loss of even one life due to inadequate safety measures is one life too many. By reviewing existing SOPs and strengthening preventive measures, we can significantly reduce the number of accidents, missing-person cases, and fatalities associated with hiking and hill-climbing activities.
