Forest Research Institute Malaysia

FRIM was set up from 1926 at Kepong, on ground that had been stripped by tin mining and shifting cultivation - bare, eroded, degraded ground - and the institute planted it as an experiment in whether tropical forest could be re-established. It could: a century on, the canopy is closed, the trees are large, the soil has recovered, and the site is now used as a reference for rainforest rehabilitation worldwide, with research plots dating back to the beginning still monitored. It was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2025 on that basis. There are arboreta of dipterocarps and other families, a canopy walkway strung between trees at around thirty metres, waterfalls and trails, and a museum. The essential thing to understand walking it is that none of this is natural forest - every tree was planted, which is why it is significant.

History

In 1926 the chief conservator of forests, G. E. S. Cubitt, asked Frederick William Foxworthy to set up a separate forest research unit, and Foxworthy chose the site at Kepong, then almost stripped of its forest, with grass scrub, vegetable terraces and ponds left by tin mining, and became its first chief research officer. By 1928 the first 42 hectares of experimental plantation, mostly dipterocarps nursed under nitrogen-fixing shade trees, were in place, the main building followed, and by the end of the decade some 125 hectares had been planted, rising to about 220 hectares by independence in 1957. The grounds were enlarged in 1962 and 1964, in 1985 the institute became a statutory body under the name Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, and on 11 July 2025 the site became a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Forest Research Institute Malaysia).

Highlights

• A rainforest replanted from bare ground - mining land replanted from the late 1920s.
• A century of research plots - the original monitoring still running.
• A canopy walkway - strung between trees at around thirty metres.
• Arboreta by family - dipterocarps and other groups planted in collections.

When to go

All year, early. A day.

Practical notes

The canopy walkway closes for maintenance and in bad weather - it has been shut for long periods and collapsed once in 2019, so check before travelling. Leeches after rain. Hot and humid.

Nearby

Kuala Lumpur is south-east; the Batu Caves are east.

Key facts