ABSTRACT
Kinabalu National Park encompasses a protected area of approximately 754 square kilometres (km2) and has been ranked as the sixth highest global biodiversity centre in the world. This area consists of extensive lowland and montane forests and highaltitude vegetation that provide a rich habitat for up to 6000 species, 1000 genera and over 200 families occurring in the flora (Beaman and Beaman, 1998). Mount Kinabalu (4098m) sits as the centrepiece of Kinabalu Park some 83km from the state capital of Kota Kinabalu and is visited by over 200,000 tourists per year. The park is administered by Sabah Parks, a government body that is directly responsible for the management of nature parks in the state of Sabah. The Projek Etnobotani Kinabalu (Kinabalu Ethnobotanical Project), an ethnobotanical division of Sabah Parks established in 1992, has been compiling a floristic inventory of Mount Kinabalu. The project has trained up to nine Dusun villagers to collect plant specimens from areas in and around Kinabalu National Park. Collections have been made from over 100 locally named sites from a range of natural and anthropogenic habitats, with specific instructions to collect plants that have known uses for Dusun communities.
