A monk and 12 others from the Peninsula have flown all the way to Sabah to join the ‘Idle No More' march that set off this morning in Tambunan.

Master Kongli had walked the full length of the 300km Himpunan Hijau march from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur last year with the same group.

NONE One of the members, Moree Ngai from Ipoh who works in Kuala Lumpur, said they had leaned about the Sabah march from Himpunan Hijau chief Wong Tack, and subsequently bought their flight tickets early this month.

Contacted by Malaysiakini yesterday, Ngai said their journey was on a voluntary basis as they need to pay for their own air tickets and transport charges to Sabah and back.

The 35-year-old computer administrator said she is a keen supporter of Himpunan Hijau for environmental protection cause, and said Wong would also join the walk tomorrow.

The 12 of them reached Tambunan at 4pm yesterday. The town is the starting point for the march.

Monk Kongli, who is from Kuantan, said that he decided to join the march because he supports environmental protection.

green walk participant 241112 monk master kong li "I hope such events will remind the people to take care of their environment and the well-being of society," Kongli ( right ) told Malaysiakini when contacted yesterday.

Different from the 300km Kuantan-KL march, he said journey on the first day from Tambunan would be the climbing of a mountain which, which peaks off at more than 1,000 metres, with the total distance to be covering being 15km.

"This will be the most special part of this march," he said.

Sabah activists are organising the 60km march from Tambunan to Penampang to demand the protection of the indigenous rights of the Orang Asal and clean and fair election.

Dubbed ‘Idle No More', the march is slated to take off from Tambunan at 9am today and end at the Pagansakan Hall in Inobong, Penampang, at 2pm on Sunday.

The organisers have also released a declaration demanding good governance, environmental protection, recognition of indigenous rights, fairness to all and clean and fair elections.

Prior to this, Himpunan Hijau held a similar 300km ‘green march' in November last year, from Kuantan to Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, demanding that the government scraps the Lynas rare earths plant project in Gebeng.

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