location: Peninsular Malaysia

location: Peninsular Malaysia

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‘Shocking’ mortality of infant macaques points to dangers of oil palm plantations
- As oil palm plantations encroach on rainforests, wild primates increasingly enter them to forage, where they face the threat of being eaten by feral dogs, killed for raiding crops, or caught by traffickers for the pet trade.
- A new study from Peninsular Malaysia finds that exposure to oil plantations also significantly increases the risk of death among infant southern pig-tailed macaques.
- In addition to known threats, researchers speculate common pesticides used in oil palm plantations might play a role in the increased death risks for infant macaques, but their study stops short of providing direct evidence implicating any specific toxic chemical in these deaths.
- Conservationists call for using environmentally safe and wildlife-friendly agricultural practices in oil plantations to minimize risks and establishing wildlife corridors and tree islands so that endangered primates, like southern pig-tailed macaques, can move freely without being exposed to threats.

Crime analysis sheds light on tiger poaching in Malaysia
- Conservationists have successfully applied an urban policing strategy to assess and fine-tune their efforts to tackle poaching of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia.
- They reported in a new paper that poaching success by hunters from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand — the main group of poachers in the country — declined by up to 40% during the study period.
- The conservationists used the EMMIE crime prevention framework (short for effect, mechanisms, moderators, implementation and economic costs) to identify what worked and areas to improve.
- There are fewer than 200 critically endangered Malayan tigers believed to survive in Malaysia, with snaring by poachers among the leading causes of their decline.

The Indo-West Pacific harbors two distinct mangrove hotspots, study says
- New research on slugs has found two types of mangrove forests in the Indo-West Pacific region, highlighting their much-needed protection against deforestation and rising sea levels.
- The Indo-West Pacific is known to have the highest diversity of mangrove plants in the world, but it wasn’t previously clear which parts of the region had peak diversity.
- The latest research found the mangrove forests of the archipelagic region that spans from Papua New Guinea to Malaysia differ in numerous characteristics, including sediment size, freshwater input and plant species.

‘Wasn’t us,’ fire-hit Indonesia claims as Malaysia chokes on poor air quality
- Malaysia has blamed forest fires in neighboring Indonesia of causing smoke that has sent air quality levels to unhealthy levels across much of the country.
- Air quality in Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Malaysia have worsened in recent days, with more than a dozen regions recording unhealthy air quality.
- Indonesian officials have denied that fires in their jurisdiction are to blame, and accused their Malaysian counterparts of misreading the data.
- Indonesia dismissed that same source of data in 2019, however, when fires in Sumatra and Borneo also spread to Malaysia and Singapore.

Airport proposal for Malaysian island doesn’t fly with conservationists
- A proposal to build an international airport on Tioman Island in Malaysia would destroy coral reefs in the heart of one of the country’s most biodiverse marine parks and have wide-ranging impacts on local communities and biodiversity.
- Plans for the airport were rejected by authorities in 2018 due to the scale of the environmental impacts it would cause, but government officials are again considering an environmental impact assessment for the development.
- Many of the island’s 3,000 residents have been left in the dark about the plans, which could wipe out livelihoods in two of the island’s seven villages.
- Critics of the project recommend authorities focus on upgrading an existing airstrip on the island to accept larger aircraft and in the meantime invest in sustainable, meaningful, nature-based tourism.

Flooding for hydropower dams hits forest-reliant bats hard, study shows
- Researchers have found that bats specialized to feed on insects within the dense canopy of tropical forests are disproportionately affected by hydropower development.
- The study in Peninsular Malaysia adds to a growing body of evidence demonstrating how hydropower developments impoverish tropical ecosystems.
- Although forest-specialist bats were lost from the flooded landscape, bats that forage along forest edges and in open space were still present.
- To minimize localized extinctions, the researchers advocate a preventive rather than mitigative approach to hydropower planning that prioritizes habitat connectivity and avoids creating isolated forest patches.

If there’s an elephant in the room, that’s because it’s not in a protected area
- A newly published study shows that elephants in Malaysia prefer habitats found outside of protected areas, with most of the elephants observed having more than half their home range outside protected areas.
- The main reason for this is that their preferred foods are more abundant in the kind of disturbed landscapes that humans create, such as plantations or secondary
- The study’s findings have important implications for Asian elephant conservation, showing that the current network of protected areas alone isn’t enough and that human-wildlife conflict needs to be managed.

In oil palm-dominated Malaysia, agroforestry orchards are oases of bird life: Study
- Demand for agricultural land threatens Peninsular Malaysia’s remnant native forest cover, and with it, Malaysia’s rich bird life.
- A recent study has found that agroforestry and polyculture plantations — those with a greater number of tree species — provide a more complex habitat for bird life and are better structured to support biodiversity.
- The study suggests that the introduction of fruit trees that encourage bird life into monoculture croplands would benefit farmers through the restoration of ecological functions, such as reducing the need for pest control through bird diet without compromising yield.

Warming could nip Southeast Asian forests’ mass flowering in the bud, study finds
- Synchronous mass flowering is one of the most spectacular but least-understood phenomena in Southeast Asia’s tropical rainforests; crucially, scientists know very little about how flowering events might be affected by climate change.
- A new study looking at historical tree flowering in Malaysia has found that between 1976 and 2010, the proportion of flowering and fruiting species decreased as temperatures began to increase through that period.
- They also used models to predict future responses to climate change, finding that a rise of 1.2°C (2.2°F) in average global temperatures by the year 2100 could halve the flowering probability of Dipterocarp trees, an ecologically and economically important tree family in Southeast Asia.
- The researchers say we will likely see shifts in tree species composition in forests as those adapted to climate change are outcompeted by more adaptable species.

Outcry in Malaysia as failure to replant forests sparks ‘cover-up’ accusation
- Critics of a government plantation scheme have slammed the program following revelations that only a fraction of forest reserves cleared for plantations over the past decade have actually been replanted.
- An investigation by environmental news site Macaranga found that only 5% of the 77,331 hectares (191,089 acres) of forest reserves cleared in Pahang state for plantations between 2012 and 2020 were replanted.
- A Pahang state opposition lawmaker has called the program a “cover-up” for a logging scheme, while an environmental activist has criticized the government for its lack of accountability.

Loss of Sumatran rhinos leaves several plant species without a seed disperser
- The critically endangered Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) plays a unique role in dispersing seeds in Southeast Asian forests, and its disappearance from these landscapes is already affecting the composition of the forests.
- Many plant species in this region evolved alongside large animals like rhinos and elephants, developing large, fleshy fruits to entice megafauna to eat and disperse them.
- A new study shows that Sumatran rhinos play this key role for an estimated 79 plant species.
- Despite some overlap in dispersal with Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) and other smaller animals, the study found that several plant species have no other known dispersers than rhinos.

Malaysia’s white-handed gibbons may be two subspecies, not one, study shows
- Scientists sequencing the genes of white-handed gibbons of the Malaysian subspecies (Hylobates lar lar) have discovered unusual mutations that hint at the existence of a separately evolving population in the peninsula.
- This particular population is so genetically different, it could potentially qualify as a new and distinct subspecies, the researchers said.
- For scientists looking to translocate and reintroduce captive gibbons into the forest, knowing the finer details like which subspecies and population a particular animal originated from can help reduce interbreeding and ensure the gibbons stay healthy in the long run.
- For researchers looking to differentiate between gibbons of the same subspecies, focusing on a particular segment of mitochondrial DNA can be a powerful method for pinpointing the population an animal originated from.

Malaysian officials deny deforestation drives deadly human-wildlife conflict
- Following a tiger mauling that killed an Indigenous Temiar man in Malaysia’s Kelantan state, officials, conservationists and Indigenous advocacy groups have been in a heated debate over the causes of human-wildlife conflict in the state.
- Indigenous communities and academics point to deforestation for logging, agriculture and infrastructure projects as the root cause of tiger attacks.
- State officials deny there is any link between deforestation and increasing contact between people and wildlife; one official even claimed that deforestation is good for tigers.

You can move an elephant to the jungle, but it won’t stay there, study says
- Despite evidence that translocating “problem elephants” into protected forests to avoid conflict with humans can in fact exacerbate problems, it is still commonly practiced.
- A study published earlier this year revealed that elephants in Peninsular Malaysia prefer open, human-dominated landscapes over primary forests, casting further doubt over translocations, since relocated elephants will tend to gravitate back toward these “prime” habitats where conflict recurs.
- The study sparked renewed discussion among researchers on effective, long-term solutions to human-elephant conflict, the leading threat to Asian elephants, that avoid translocations.
- Experts say that people’s willingness to co-exist with elephants will be the most influential factor in the long-term survival of the species.

Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.

When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.

Win for Malaysian forest after government backs down on development plan
- Plans to remove protections from the Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve, a protected forest close to Kuala Lumpur in Peninsular Malaysia, have been cancelled by the local government.
- The Selangor state government will regazette the area as a protected forest following an intense civil society campaign against the plans to build a “mixed use” development covering half of the extant forest.
- Selangor state is unique in Malaysia for having laws that require public review of plans to convert protected forests for other use; activists are now calling for these regulations to be adopted more widely.

They safeguarded nature, but now Malaysia’s Mah Meri face eviction for an eco-resort
- Members of the Mah Meri Indigenous community in Malaysia are fighting an attempt to evict them to make way for the expansion of a beach resort.
- The notice, served by the Selangor state government, says the land in question belongs to the government, and has threatened legal action if the Mah Meri settlement is not cleared.
- In a countersuit, the Mah Meri say the land should have been legally recognized as Indigenous territory long before this dispute developed.

Tiger habitat threatened by Malaysian royals’ mining plans
- A company owned by members of Pahang state’s royal family plans to mine iron ore in a forest reserve that is home to 15 threatened species, including tigers, elephants, tapirs, sun bears and leopards.
- The area, which was until June 2019 listed as a permanent forest reserve, is part of a wildlife corridor connecting key forest complexes in Peninsular Malaysia’s Central Forest Spine.
- The planned iron mine, which came to light after the project’s environmental impact assessment was made public, is one of a spate of extractive projects recently found to be linked to Malaysian royalty.

Blind spot in palm policy raises deforestation risk in Malaysia, report says
- A blind spot in the sustainable production policies of major palm oil companies is allowing plantation owners clearing rainforest in Malaysia to continue feeding the former’s “deforestation-free” supply chains.
- In Indonesia, forests can only be cleared if they are explicitly linked to a particular project; in Malaysia, companies can obtain permits for the sole purpose of clear-felling, making it more difficult to link oil palm growers and plantation owners to deforestation activities.
- Researchers have called on palm oil traders and refiners to trace deforestation beyond the mills in their supply chains, to the plantations the mills are buying from.

Monks and wildlife come under pressure from Malaysian cement company
- Since last December, cement manufacturer Associated Pan Malaysia Cement has been looking to evict dozens of monks and devotees from the Dhamma Sakyamuni Caves Monastery in the limestone hills of Mount Kanthan in Malaysia’s Perak state.
- APMC calls the monks unlawful trespassers on company land; the monks say the company consented to their occupying the land for decades.
- Much of Mount Kanthan has already been quarried by APMC, and the untouched southern section where the monastery is located is also home to highly endemic and critically endangered flora and fauna.
- The monks and devotees are petitioning for the Perak state government to officially designate the monastery as a place of worship and Mount Kanthan as a national heritage site.

In Malaysia, the fate of a peat forest hinges on a powerful state official
- The government of Malaysia’s Selangor state appears intent on rescinding protected status for the remnants of a once-sprawling peat forest that’s home to Indigenous people and threatened wildlife.
- It wants to allow a “mixed development project” on 931 hectares (2,300 acres) of the Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve (KLNFR), which has drawn widespread opposition from Indigenous people, environmental organizations, and a former environment minister.
- Environmental activists point to prevailing regulations that they say should shield the area from being degazetted, but state laws largely favor the powerful leader of Selangor, Amirudin Shari.
- As chief minister, Shari heads both the state government and the board of one of the companies pushing for the development project, and has so far stood his ground against critics of the plan.

What does a great argus pheasant sound like? Candid Animal Cam listens to birds
- Every Tuesday, Mongabay brings you a new episode of Candid Animal Cam, our show featuring animals caught on camera traps around the world and hosted by Romi Castagnino, our writer and conservation scientist.

Pollution, water cuts strengthen calls for environmental law reform in Malaysia
- Repeated water cut-offs due to the illegal dumping of chemicals in Malaysia’s rivers have led to a groundswell of citizens calling for stronger enforcement against industrial polluters.
- The surge of angry consumers is amplifying a call long made by civil society groups to reform the country’s environmental regulations, particularly the Environmental Quality Act of 1974, the primary federal law aimed at curbing pollution and protecting the environment.
- With recent changes in the national government, and increasingly dynamic competition among political parties, calls for reform appear to be meeting with a positive response from the government, which has convened an interdisciplinary task force to make recommendations.

‘We are losing’: Q&A with The Orangutan Project’s Leif Cocks on saving the great ape
- For International Orangutan Day, Mongabay spoke with Leif Cocks, founder and president of The Orangutan Project, which seeks to protect the endangered orange-haired primates and their rapidly disappearing habitats in Southeast Asia.
- All three species of orangutans — Sumatran (Pongo abelii), Bornean (P. pygmaeus) and Tapanuli (P. tapanuliensis) are one step away from extinction.
- Deforestation is the biggest threat the primates face, and at the moment most conservation efforts have only been able to slow forest loss, not turn the tide around, Leif told Mongabay.
- Oil palm plantations replacing primary rainforests is a major problem in Malaysia and Indonesia, but Cocks says simply banning these plantations is not the answer; instead, he advocates for replacing exploitative production systems with those that recognize the services that these forests provide to the local communities and building on that.

Indonesian minister draws fire for denial of transboundary haze problem
- Indonesia’s environment minister continues to deny that fires in the country are sending toxic haze to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.
- An environmental activist warns that this stance, which goes against the data presented by Malaysia, risks undermining Indonesia’s credibility.
- The haze is an annual irritant in diplomatic ties between Indonesia and its neighbors, with much of the burning taking place to clear land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations.
- Malaysia has offered to help Indonesia fight the fires, which have sickened tens of thousands of people in Sumatra and Borneo, threatened an elephant reserve, and churned more than 100 millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

As opposition wanes, a Malaysian land reclamation project pushes ahead
- When Mahathir Mohamad was elected Malaysia’s prime minister in May 2018, Chinese-backed developments were put in the political crosshairs.
- Forest City, a massive mixed-use development being built off the southern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, had already attracted controversy due to concerns about its impact on fisheries, seagrass beds, mangroves, and relations with neighboring Singapore.
- Although it’s been a bumpy political year for Forest City’s developers, construction continues on the project, as does debate over its environmental impacts.

Despite fiery campaign rhetoric, Chinese-backed projects in Malaysia steam ahead
- In 2018, Mahathir Mohamad unseated Najib Razak as prime minister in Malaysia’s elections, on a platform that relied heavily on anti-Chinese rhetoric.
- In his first months in office, Mahathir suspended or canceled a number of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, including the 688-kilometer (428-mile) East Coast Rail Link, a planned railway line that raised serious concerns for environmentalists.
- In the year since, Mahathir has walked back his campaign rhetoric, and most major infrastructure projects are set to be relaunched, albeit at lower costs.

Social media enables the illegal wildlife pet trade in Malaysia
- Conservationists say that prosecuting wildlife traffickers in Malaysia for trading in protected species isn’t easy, as traders have several loopholes to aid their efforts.
- One wildlife trafficker known as Kejora Pets has been operating in Peninsular Malaysia for years, selling “cute” pets to individuals through social media.
- Malaysia’s wildlife act doesn’t address the posting of protected animals for sale on social media, and operators like Kejora Pets appear to avoid ever being in possession of protected animals, allowing them to skirt statutes aimed at catching illicit traders.
- Proposed changes to Malaysia’s wildlife act could offer some relief to besieged populations of protected species by making it easier to prosecute online trafficking of protected animals.

Indonesia oil slicks highlight weak enforcement against bilge dumping
- An environmental monitoring group has published reports saying that two ships have been pumping their waste oil out to sea, in a process known as bilge dumping, off the coast of Sumatra.
- The findings are based on a combination of satellite imagery of the slicks, which extend a total of 135 kilometers (84 miles), and tracking data from the ships.
- Activists say these findings highlight just how common bilge dumping is in Indonesian waters, and the lack of enforcement against the practice.
- Officials had not commented on the matter as of the time this story was published.

Roads divide opinions along with forests, study finds
- A team of researchers found that support for new road construction was split among indigenous communities living in Malaysia.
- In general, people living in communities near an existing highway were more likely to support roads than those living in villages farther away from the highway.
- The authors write that the findings lend support to the need for comprehensive social impact assessments before and during the construction of new roads.

The great rhino U-turn
- As the 20th century drew to a close the Sumatran rhino captive breeding program, launched in 1984, had yet to produce a single calf.
- Home to the last two Sumatran rhinos in the United States, the Cincinnati Zoo made several key discoveries about the species’ reproductive behavior, including the fact that females only ovulate when they have contact with males.
- Andalas, the first Sumatran rhino bred in captivity in more than a century, was born in Cincinnati in 2001. This success, and the subsequent birth of four other calves, has led to a re-evaluation of the program as a whole.
- Now, attention is turned to breeding centers in the rhinos’ original habitat as the future of captive breeding efforts.

Conservation groups herald protection of tiger habitat in Malaysia
- The state government of Terengganu has set aside more than 100 square kilometers (39 square miles) for critically endangered Malayan tigers and other wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia.
- The state’s chief minister said the newly created Lawit-Cenana State Park’s high density of threatened species made the area a priority for protection.
- The park is home to 291 species of birds and 18 species of mammals, including elephants, tapirs and pangolins.

A civic outcry in Malaysia forces a Chinese builder to live up to its eco-friendly tag
- Forest City, a massive land reclamation project built by a Chinese developer and backed by the sultan of Johor state in Malaysia, was initially allowed to begin construction without a detailed environmental impact assessment.
- Facing public protests, and concern from neighboring Singapore, the government halted the project and required a laundry list of design changes to the city, which is projected to house 700,000 people upon completion.
- The project is marketed as an eco-friendly “future city,” but has been met with concern by environmentalists. China’s involvement has also caused political problems, including an announcement in August that Malaysia will not allow foreigners to purchase property in the development.
- This is the final installment in a six-part series on infrastructure development in Peninsular Malaysia.

A Malaysian port city grapples with the fallout from Chinese funding
- Pahang state on Malaysia’s east coast was selected as the site of several key projects in the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s colossal, international infrastructure development plan.
- Newly elected prime minister Mahathir Mohamed has put brakes on several key projects, including a rail link that was intended to serve Kuantan Port and other sites on the east coast.
- The rationale for the projects’ cancellation has been political and economic, but conservationists worry about environmental impacts.
- This is the fifth in a six-part series of articles on infrastructure projects in Peninsular Malaysia.

In Malaysia, an island drowns in its own development
- Malaysia’s Penang Island has undergone massive development since the 1960s, a process that continues today with plans for transit and land-reclamation megaprojects.
- The island is increasingly facing floods and landslides, problems environmentalists link to paving land and building on steep slopes.
- This is the second in a six-part series of articles on infrastructure projects in Peninsular Malaysia.

‘Single-minded determination’: China’s global infrastructure spree rings alarm bells
- Governments across Southeast Asia have embraced billions of dollars in construction projects backed by China as they rely on infrastructure-building to drive their economic growth.
- But there are worries that this building spree, under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), makes no concessions for environmental protections, and even deliberately targets host countries with a weak regulatory climate.
- Beijing has also been accused of going on a debt-driven grab for natural resources and geopolitical clout, through the terms under which it lends money to other governments for the infrastructure projects.
- In parallel, China is also building up its green finance system, potentially as a means to channel more funding into its Belt and Road Initiative.

Tiger, clouded leopard skins among illegal wildlife parts seized in Malaysia
- Malaysian authorities have seized wildlife parts worth 500,000 ringgit ($124,000) during a raid in the town of Kuala Lipis, outside Taman Negara, the country’s oldest national park.
- Officials also arrested six Vietnamese nationals — four men and two women — alleged to be part of a larger tiger-poaching gang.
- The confiscated animal parts include two entire tiger pelts suspected to have come from critically endangered Malayan tigers. Each of those pelts is estimated to be worth 200,000 Ringgit ($50,000) on the black market.

Scientists aim to give engineers the tools for ecologically sensitive development
- EIAs, or environmental impact assessments, are notoriously flawed and don’t always provide an accurate assessment of the risks of development projects.
- A recent article by a team of scientists is part of a larger effort to give planners and engineers the data for more environmentally sensitive development.
- The article appears in the February issue of Jurutera: The Journal of Malaysian Engineers.

Indonesia hints rhino sperm transfer to Malaysia may finally happen this year
- Indonesia has signaled it may send a much-needed sample of Sumatran rhino sperm to Malaysia for use in a captive-breeding program seen as the last means of saving the critically endangered species.
- If it goes to plan, the program would boost the genetic diversity of the species, of which only 30 to 100 individuals are believed to remain in the wild.
- The Sumatran rhino population has been decimated by poaching and habitat loss, but the biggest threat facing the species today is the small and fragmented nature of their populations, with an increased risk of inbreeding.

Palm oil’s ecological footprint extends to distant forests, study finds
- A new study has found that the ecological footprint of oil palm plantations on neighboring forests extends beyond just deforestation and is “substantially underestimated.”
- This is based on the discovery of the extensive damage done to forest understory by wild boars that feed on the palm fruit.
- The damage was found to persist more than a kilometer away from oil palm plantations, leading the researchers to call for the establishment of buffer zones as a way to address the problem.

Road building threatens forests, water supplies in Kuala Lumpur area
- Construction has begun on the East Klang Valley Expressway (EKVE), part of a broader plan to create a ring road around Malaysia’s capital.
- The road has been controversial from the start, with environmentalists and residents raising concerns about its impact on forests, wildlife, erosion and urban water supplies.
- Activists are particularly concerned about the second phase of the project, fearing it will threaten the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge, a proposed World Heritage site.

Bats key pollinators for durian production, camera traps confirm
- A new study employing camera traps indicates that flying foxes in Malaysia are important pollinators of commercially valuable durian fruit trees.
- The researchers set 19 traps in semi-wild durian trees.
- Their investigation revealed that the bats had a positive impact on the transformation of the flower to fruit.

Seven ‘most wanted’ elephant poachers arrested in Malaysia
- The poachers were caught in a joint operation between the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and Malaysia’s Armed Forces on February 10.
- During the raid, the authorities seized animal parts worth about $112,300, as well as hunting gear and firearms, including shotguns, machetes, knives, bullets, explosives and firecrackers.
- During subsequent raids on February 11 and 12, Perhilitan officers seized two elephant tusks, elephant meat, and more weapons and equipment.

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