This project provides ecological benefits in various ways: - To provide wild food for the local wildlife at Tawau Hills especially hornbills, gibbons and langurs allowing visitors to watch these animals at close quarters. - To provide a living gene bank of Borneo figs freely available to both Malaysian and overseas researchers into fig ecology, taxonomy and biodiversity. - To provide planting material for the much larger adjacent habitat enhancement project described here and other forest restoration projects in Borneo. - To carry out field experiments on how best to plant strangling figs on oil palms to enhance the edge of oil palm estates for wildlife habitat throughout Borneo. - To educate visitors on the best practices for restoring damaged forest back to to the original diversity of Borneo’s native forests.

Our hope is that in 50 years time the Tawau Hills Fig Garden will provide a diverse wildlife rich forest garden which will attract students, researchers and tourists from around the world.

Finally we hope that this living example of what is possible will stimulate the creation of hundreds of similar projects throughout Borneo. We can provide free fig seeds and growing advice to anyone interested in similar projects and forest restoration.

This project endeavours to engage different schools, churches, mosques, private companies and people having their own plots in the planting site thus they have a sense of belonging to the project which will help create positive perceptions about the natural world. This project is designed to support wildlife and education tourism to help create more local jobs.