Biotechnology will play a key role in transforming current land-use systems alongside the digital revolution by using five strategies: enhancing productivity at the farm or plantation level, replenishing degraded land, enabling landscape management for resilience, upgrading and diversifying downstream activities, and creating new value propositions.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends
Systematic assessments of species extinction risk at regular intervals are necessary for informing conservation action1,2. Ongoing developments in taxonomy, threatening processes and research further underscore the need for reassessment3,4. Here we report the findings of the second Global Amphibian Assessment, evaluating 8,011 species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. We find that amphibians are the most threatened vertebrate class (40.7% of species are globally threatened). The updated Red List Index shows that the status of amphibians is deteriorating globally, particularly for salamanders and in the Neotropics. Disease and habitat loss drove 91% of status deteriorations between 1980 and 2004. Ongoing and projected climate change effects are now of increasing concern, driving 39% of status deteriorations since 2004, followed by habitat loss (37%). Although signs of species recoveries incentivize immediate conservation action, scaled-up investment is urgently needed to reverse the current trends.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends
In an earlier special issue of this journal, Marsh & Greer summarized forest land use in Sabah at that time and gave an introduction to the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Since that assessment, during the period 1990-2010, the forests of Sabah and particularly those of the ca 10 000 km(2) concession managed on behalf of the State by Yayasan Sabah (the Sabah Foundation) have been subject to continual, industrial harvesting, including the premature re-logging of extensive tracts of previously only once-logged forest and large-scale conversion of natural forests to agricultural plantations. Over the same period, however, significant areas of previously unprotected pristine forest have been formally gazetted as conservation areas, while much of the forest to the north, the south and the east of the Danum Valley Conservation Area (the Ulu Segama and Malua Forest Reserves) has been given added protection and new forest restoration initiatives have been launched. This paper analyses these forest-management and land-use changes in Sabah during the period 1990-2010, with a focus on the Yayasan Sabah Forest Management Area. Important new conservation and forest restoration and rehabilitation initiatives within its borders are given particular emphasis.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
Drivers of sustainable waste management are defined as groups of related factors that influence the development (or lack thereof) of industry. There has been no attempt to reasonably list the drivers that influence sustainable waste management in Asia. In this review, four groups of drivers of sustainable waste management, specifically of Asia, are explained. The four groups of drivers consist of three human elements (human, economic and institutional) and the environment as a single driving group. Typically, the first three groups have been very influential, with the environment driver, noticeably, only considered when preceded by other groups of drivers. The interconnectedness of the drivers and neglect of the environment driver is discussed. It is concluded that while the essence of the four groups of drivers can be found all over Asia, each driving group must be investigated in a local context and all information combined to devise sustainable waste management policies or strategies.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing demands on land between agriculture (SDG 2) and biodiversity (SDG 15). The production of vegetable oils and, in particular, palm oil, illustrates these competing demands and trade-offs. Palm oil accounts for ~40% of the current global annual demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel (210 Mt), but planted oil palm covers less than 5-5.5% of the total global oil crop area (approximately 425 Mha) due to oil palm's relatively high yields. Recent oil palm expansion in forested regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, where >90% of global palm oil is produced, has led to substantial concern around oil palm's role in deforestation. Oil palm expansion's direct contribution to regional tropical deforestation varies widely, ranging from an estimated 3% in West Africa to 50% in Malaysian Borneo. Oil palm is also implicated in peatland draining and burning in Southeast Asia. Documented negative environmental impacts from such expansion include biodiversity declines, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. However, oil palm generally produces more oil per area than other oil crops, is often economically viable in sites unsuitable for most other crops and generates considerable wealth for at least some actors. Global demand for vegetable oils is projected to increase by 46% by 2050. Meeting this demand through additional expansion of oil palm versus other vegetable oil crops will lead to substantial differential effects on biodiversity, food security, climate change, land degradation and livelihoods. Our Review highlights that although substantial gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts of oil palm, and the scope, stringency and effectiveness of initiatives to address these, there has been little research into the impacts and trade-offs of other vegetable oil crops. Greater research attention needs to be given to investigating the impacts of palm oil production compared to alternatives for the trade-offs to be assessed at a global scale.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
Humanity will soon define a new era for nature-one that seeks to transform decades of underwhelming responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and diversify. However, persistent shortfalls in ecological representation and management effectiveness diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming biodiversity loss. Here we show how the expansion of protected areas by national governments since 2010 has had limited success in increasing the coverage across different elements of biodiversity (ecoregions, 12,056 threatened species, 'Key Biodiversity Areas' and wilderness areas) and ecosystem services (productive fisheries, and carbon services on land and sea). To be more successful after 2020, area-based conservation must contribute more effectively to meeting global biodiversity goals-ranging from preventing extinctions to retaining the most-intact ecosystems-and must better collaborate with the many Indigenous peoples, community groups and private initiatives that are central to the successful conservation of biodiversity. The long-term success of area-based conservation requires parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to secure adequate financing, plan for climate change and make biodiversity conservation a far stronger part of land, water and sea management policies.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
The continuing development of improved capture-recapture (CR) modeling techniques used to study apex predators has also limited robust temporal and cross-site analyses due to different methods employed. We develop an approach to standardize older non-spatial CR and newer spatial CR density estimates and examine trends for critically endangered Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) using a meta-regression of 17 existing densities and new estimates from our own fieldwork. We find that tiger densities were 47% higher in primary versus degraded forests and, unexpectedly, increased 4.9% per yr from 1996 to 2014, likely indicating a recovery from earlier poaching. However, while tiger numbers may have temporarily risen, the total potential island-wide population declined by 16.6% from 2000 to 2012 due to forest loss and degradation and subpopulations are significantly more fragmented. Thus, despite increasing densities in smaller parks, we conclude that there are only two robust populations left with >30 breeding females, indicating Sumatran tigers still face a high risk of extinction unless deforestation can be controlled.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends
The forests of Borneo-the third largest island on the planet-sustain some of the highest biodiversity and carbon storage in the world. The forests also provide vital ecosystem services and livelihood support for millions of people in the region, including many indigenous communities. The Pan-Borneo Highway and several hydroelectric dams are planned or already under construction in Sarawak, a Malaysian state comprising part of the Borneo. This development seeks to enhance economic growth and regional connectivity, support community access to services, and promote industrial development. However, the implications of the development of highway and dams for forest integrity, biodiversity and ecosystem services remained largely unreported. We assessed these development projects using fine-scale biophysical and environmental data and found several environmental and socioeconomic risks associated with the projects. The highway and hydroelectric dam projects will impact 32 protected areas including numerous key habitats of threatened species such as the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), Sarawak surili (Presbytis chrysomelas), Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and tufted ground squirrel (Rheithrosciurus macrotis). Under its slated development trajectory, the local and trans-national forest connectivity between Malaysian Borneo and Indonesian Borneo would also be substantially diminished. Nearly ~161 km of the Pan-Borneo Highway in Sarawak will traverse forested landscapes and ~55 km will traverse carbon-rich peatlands. The 13 hydroelectric dam projects will collectively impact ~1.7 million ha of forest in Sarawak. The consequences of planned highway and hydroelectric dams construction will increase the carbon footprint of development in the region. Moreover, many new road segments and hydroelectric dams would be built on steep slopes in high-rainfall zones and forested areas, increasing both construction and ongoing maintenance costs. The projects would also alter livelihood activities of downstream communities, risking their long-term sustainability. Overall, our findings identify major economic, social and environmental risks for several planned road segments in Sarawak-such as those between Telok Melano and Kuching; Sibu and Bintulu; and in the Lambir, Limbang and Lawas regions-and dam projects-such as Tutoh, Limbang, Lawas, Baram, Linau, Ulu Air and Baleh dams. Such projects need to be reviewed to ensure they reflect Borneo's unique environmental and forest ecosystem values, the aspirations of local communities and long-term sustainability of the projects rather than being assessed solely on their short-term economic returns.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
Habitat degradation and hunting have caused the widespread loss of larger vertebrate species (defaunation) from tropical biodiversity hotspots. However, these defaunation drivers impact vertebrate biodiversity in different ways and, therefore, require different conservation interventions. We conducted landscape-scale camera-trap surveys across six study sites in Southeast Asia to assess how moderate degradation and intensive, indiscriminate hunting differentially impact tropical terrestrial mammals and birds. We found that functional extinction rates were higher in hunted compared to degraded sites. Species found in both sites had lower occupancies in the hunted sites. Canopy closure was the main predictor of occurrence in the degraded sites, while village density primarily influenced occurrence in the hunted sites. Our findings suggest that intensive, indiscriminate hunting may be a more immediate threat than moderate habitat degradation for tropical faunal communities, and that conservation stakeholders should focus as much on overhunting as on habitat conservation to address the defaunation crisis.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends
New plantations can either cause deforestation by replacing natural forests or avoid this by using previously cleared areas. The extent of these two situations is contested in tropical biodiversity hotspots where objective data are limited. Here, we explore delays between deforestation and the establishment of industrial tree plantations on Borneo using satellite imagery. Between 1973 and 2015 an estimated 18.7 Mha of Borneo's old-growth forest were cleared (14.4 Mha and 4.2 Mha in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo). Industrial plantations expanded by 9.1 Mha (7.8 Mha oil-palm; 1.3 Mha pulpwood). Approximately 7.0 Mha of the total plantation area in 2015 (9.2 Mha) were old-growth forest in 1973, of which 4.5-4.8 Mha (24-26% of Borneo-wide deforestation) were planted within five years of forest clearance (3.7-3.9 Mha oil-palm; 0.8-0.9 Mha pulpwood). This rapid within-five-year conversion has been greater in Malaysia than in Indonesia (57-60% versus 15-16%). In Indonesia, a higher proportion of oil-palm plantations was developed on already cleared degraded lands (a legacy of recurrent forest fires). However, rapid conversion of Indonesian forests to industrial plantations has increased steeply since 2005. We conclude that plantation industries have been the principle driver of deforestation in Malaysian Borneo over the last four decades. In contrast, their role in deforestation in Indonesian Borneo was less marked, but has been growing recently. We note caveats in interpreting these results and highlight the need for greater accountability in plantation development.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
Bera Lake is the largest natural fresh water reservoir in Malaysia. It has vital environmental and ecological importance for human and wild life. Nevertheless, water quality of this lake has been degraded during the last few decades due to land development projects at catchment area. Therefore, a comprehensive water quality assessment of Bera Lake was implemented in order to compare current water quality with the implementation of land development projects. In situ water quality surveying was implemented using calibrated full option Hydrolab DS 5. Eleven parameters viz., temperature, depth of sampling, salinity, Turbidity, total dried solid, pH, NH4(+), N03(-), Cl(-), saturation percentage of dissolved oxygen, specific conductivity were recorded in fifty one stations at 0.2h, 0.5h, and 0.8h depth. National Water Quality Standards for Malaysia (NWQS) and Water Quality were used to evaluate Bera Lake quality based on previous and resultant data. Vertical water quality analysis revealed a clear stratification in Bera Lake water profile in terms of temperature, dissolved oxygen, chloride (Cl(-)), nitrate (NO(3)), pH and specific conductivity (EC) parameters. Results clearly demonstrate the important role of land use changes since 1972 in the physico-chemical condition of water quality at Bera Lake. Classifications of water quality before and after land development project were calculated as class II and class V, respectively. A long-term and comprehensive monitoring of water quality assessment is recommended in order to reach plan of sustainable water resources use with conservation approach.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends*
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 and human responses to the resulting COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 have rapidly changed many aspects of human behavior, including our interactions with wildlife. In this commentary, we identify challenges and opportunities at human-primate interfaces in light of COVID-19, focusing on examples from Asia, and make recommendations for researchers working with wild primates to reduce zoonosis risk and leverage research opportunities. First, we briefly review the evidence for zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 and discuss risks of zoonosis at the human-primate interface. We then identify challenges that the pandemic has caused for primates, including reduced nutrition, increased intraspecific competition, and increased poaching risk, as well as challenges facing primatologists, including lost research opportunities. Subsequently, we highlight opportunities arising from pandemic-related lockdowns and public health messaging, including opportunities to reduce the intensity of problematic human-primate interfaces, opportunities to reduce the risk of zoonosis between humans and primates, opportunities to reduce legal and illegal trade in primates, new opportunities for research on human-primate interfaces, and opportunities for community education. Finally, we recommend specific actions that primatologists should take to reduce contact and aggression between humans and primates, to reduce demand for primates as pets, to reduce risks of zoonosis in the context of field research, and to improve understanding of human-primate interfaces. Reducing the risk of zoonosis and promoting the well-being of humans and primates at our interfaces will require substantial changes from "business as usual." We encourage primatologists to help lead the way.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends
The objective of the study is to establish the link between air pollution, fossil fuel energy consumption, industrialization, alternative and nuclear energy, combustible renewable and wastes, urbanization, and resulting impact on health services in Malaysia. The study employed two-stage least square regression technique on the time series data from 1975 to 2012 to possibly minimize the problem of endogeniety in the health services model. The results in general show that air pollution and environmental indicators act as a strong contributor to influence Malaysian health services. Urbanization and nuclear energy consumption both significantly increases the life expectancy in Malaysia, while fertility rate decreases along with the increasing urbanization in a country. Fossil fuel energy consumption and industrialization both have an indirect relationship with the infant mortality rate, whereas, carbon dioxide emissions have a direct relationship with the sanitation facility in a country. The results conclude that balancing the air pollution, environment, and health services needs strong policy vistas on the end of the government officials.
Matched MeSH terms: Conservation of Natural Resources/trends