The natural environment embraces agriculture and all its components-crops, animals, land, water,
forestry and fisheries. It is the most important user of environmental resources, made more complex
by the interactions of the various systems, biophysical elements and their implications. Increased food
production, especially of animal protein supplies are unable to meet current and projected future needs
for humans, including about 15 %of the world population being malnourished. Agriculture is currently
waning, and a coordinated and concerted technologically-driven transformation is necessary. Poorly
managed agriculture for example, can lead to serious environmental degradation and exacerbate
poverty. Land and water are considered to be the most limiting factors in the future. Non- irrigated
rainfed areas can be divided into high potential and low potential areas; the former offers considerable
promise to expand food production. This paper argues for increased Research and Development (R&D)
focus that can maximise improved natural resource management(NRM), and whether agricultural
development can maximise productivity yields .Other opportunities include expanding crop–animal
production systems in less favoured areas (LFAs), intensifying land use for silvopastoral systems in
rainfed areas , and enhance carbon sequestration. Ruminants can be used as an entry point for the
development of LFAs, and the presence of about 41.5% of the goat population found in the semi-arid/
arid AEZs X provides good opportunities for expanding food security and human well-being. Communitybased
interdisciplinary and systems approaches are essential to provide the solutions. The legacy of
continuing malnutrition and food insecurity must be overcome by effective development policy, multidonor
resource allocation, governance and political will that target food insecurity and poverty. The R&D
agendas and resource allocations are compelling, but dedicated vision can lead the way for sciencedriven
sustainable environment, efficiency in NRM, and self-reliance to the extent possible , in harmony
with nature and the environment.
Selective logging and forest conversion to oil palm agriculture are rapidly altering tropical forests. However, functional responses of the soil microbiome to these land-use changes are poorly understood. Using 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic sequencing, we compared composition and functional attributes of soil biota between unlogged, once-logged and twice-logged rainforest, and areas converted to oil palm plantations in Sabah, Borneo. Although there was no significant effect of logging history, we found a significant difference between the taxonomic and functional composition of both primary and logged forests and oil palm. Oil palm had greater abundances of genes associated with DNA, RNA, protein metabolism and other core metabolic functions, but conversely, lower abundance of genes associated with secondary metabolism and cell-cell interactions, indicating less importance of antagonism or mutualism in the more oligotrophic oil palm environment. Overall, these results show a striking difference in taxonomic composition and functional gene diversity of soil microorganisms between oil palm and forest, but no significant difference between primary forest and forest areas with differing logging history. This reinforces the view that logged forest retains most features and functions of the original soil community. However, networks based on strong correlations between taxonomy and functions showed that network complexity is unexpectedly increased due to both logging and oil palm agriculture, which suggests a pervasive effect of both land-use changes on the interaction of soil microbes.
Ten years' hydrological investigations at Danum have provided strong evidence of the effects of extremes of drought, as in the April 1992 El Niño southern oscillation event, and flood, as in January 1996. The 1.5 km2 undisturbed forest control catchment experienced a complete drying out of the stream for the whole 1.5 km of defined channel above the gauging station in 1992, but concentrated surface flow along every declivity from within a few metres of the catchment divide after the exceptional rains of 19 January 1996. Under these natural conditions, erosion is episodic. Sediment is discharged in pulses caused by storm events, collapse of debris dams and occasional landslips. Disturbance by logging accentuates this irregular regime. In the first few months following disturbance, a wave of sediment is moved by each storm, but over subsequent years, rare events scour sediment from bare areas, gullies and channel deposits. The spatial distribution of sediment sources changes with time after logging, as bare areas on slopes are revegetated and small gullies are filled with debris. Extreme storm events, as in January 1996, cause logging roads to collapse, with landslides leading to surges of sediment into channels, reactivating the pulsed sediment delivery by every storm that happened immediately after logging. These effects are not dampened out with increasing catchment scale. Even the 721 km2 Sungai Segama has a sediment yield regime dominated by extreme events, the sediment yield in that single day on 19 January 1996 exceeding the annual sediment load in several previous years. In a large disturbed catchment, such road failures and logging-activity-induced mass movements increase the mud and silt in floodwaters affecting settlements downstream. Management systems require long-term sediment reduction strategies. This implies careful road design and good water movement regulation and erosion control throughout the logging process.
Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are increased remarkably from year to year and the estimated global area cultivated with genetically modified (GM) crops reached 125 million hectares in year 2008. However, insect resistance maize based on Bacillus thuringienses (Bt) is of the most cultivated GM crop in worldwide. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is an aerobic, gram-positive bacterium that synthesize one or more Cry protein that are toxic to various types crop and forestry insects pests. To date, several cry genes have been introduced into GM plant to combat with various type of insect. Worldwide commercialization of GM crops has raised the customers’ concern about the Biosafety issues, and thus, many countries have implemented the labeling legislations for GM food and their derivatives. In this study, we introduced the quantitative analysis method based on the recombinant plasmid DNA as calibrators that can be used to determine the percentage of GMO content in various types of food and feed samples. Therefore, we have reported 7.5% (6/80) of the samples were contained StarLink maize and 1.25% (1/80) samples were contained Bt176 maize. Additionally, the percentage of GM content in each positive sample were further determined with the developed quantitative method. The percentage of the StarLink corns that present in the positive samples were varies from 0.09% to 2.53% and Bt176 corn that present in the positive sample was 16.90%. The present study demonstrated that the recombinant plasmid DNA that used in quantitative real-time method as good alternative quantitative analysis of GM content.
The effects of commercial logging on tree diversity in tropical rainforest are largely unknown. In this study, selectively logged tropical rainforest in Indonesian Borneo is shown to contain high tree species richness, despite severe structural damage. Plots logged 8 years before sampling contained fewer species of trees greater than 20 centimeters in diameter than did similar-sized unlogged plots. However, in samples of the same numbers of trees (requiring a 50 percent larger area), logged forest contained as many tree species as unlogged forest. These findings warrant reassessment of the conservation potential of large tracts of commercially logged tropical rainforest.
Tropical rainforests are subject to extensive degradation by commercial selective logging. Despite pervasive changes to forest structure, selectively logged forests represent vital refugia for global biodiversity. The ability of these forests to buffer temperature-sensitive species from climate warming will be an important determinant of their future conservation value, although this topic remains largely unexplored. Thermal buffering potential is broadly determined by: (i) the difference between the "macroclimate" (climate at a local scale, m to ha) and the "microclimate" (climate at a fine-scale, mm to m, that is distinct from the macroclimate); (ii) thermal stability of microclimates (e.g. variation in daily temperatures); and (iii) the availability of microclimates to organisms. We compared these metrics in undisturbed primary forest and intensively logged forest on Borneo, using thermal images to capture cool microclimates on the surface of the forest floor, and information from dataloggers placed inside deadwood, tree holes and leaf litter. Although major differences in forest structure remained 9-12 years after repeated selective logging, we found that logging activity had very little effect on thermal buffering, in terms of macroclimate and microclimate temperatures, and the overall availability of microclimates. For 1°C warming in the macroclimate, temperature inside deadwood, tree holes and leaf litter warmed slightly more in primary forest than in logged forest, but the effect amounted to <0.1°C difference between forest types. We therefore conclude that selectively logged forests are similar to primary forests in their potential for thermal buffering, and subsequent ability to retain temperature-sensitive species under climate change. Selectively logged forests can play a crucial role in the long-term maintenance of global biodiversity.
The dominant factors controlling soil bacterial community variation within the tropics are poorly known. We sampled soils across a range of land use types--primary (unlogged) and logged forests and crop and pasture lands in Malaysia. PCR-amplified soil DNA for the bacterial 16S rRNA gene targeting the V1-V3 region was pyrosequenced using the 454 Roche machine. We found that land use in itself has a weak but significant effect on the bacterial community composition. However, bacterial community composition and diversity was strongly correlated with soil properties, especially soil pH, total carbon, and C/N ratio. Soil pH was the best predictor of bacterial community composition and diversity across the various land use types, with the highest diversity close to neutral pH values. In addition, variation in phylogenetic structure of dominant lineages (Alphaproteobacteria, Beta/Gammaproteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Actinobacteria) is also significantly correlated with soil pH. Together, these results confirm the importance of soil pH in structuring soil bacterial communities in Southeast Asia. Our results also suggest that unlike the general diversity pattern found for larger organisms, primary tropical forest is no richer in operational taxonomic units of soil bacteria than logged forest, and agricultural land (crop and pasture) is actually richer than primary forest, partly due to selection of more fertile soils that have higher pH for agriculture and the effects of soil liming raising pH.