The Penang South Reclamation Scheme looks good on paper … at least to local politicians and developers. It would be a massive overhaul of the fast-developing island’s southern shoreline complete with the construction of two new artificial islands off the coast (of about 2,000 acres and 1,300 acres respectively) with…
Your boat or ship springs a leak and oil spills into the sea. What can you do? It’s not your fault. Right? Whether it’s your fault or not, you may well be responsible for even accidental oil spills if Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar has his…
Come next year, Malaysia’s environment will have a powerful new ally: a comprehensive law that will enable federal authorities to throw the book at polluters and other wrongdoers far more effectively. This is according to the drafters of a new Environmental Protection Act, which will replace the current law called…
Malaysia’s first locally born giant panda is heading back home. Does that sound like a contradiction? It does, doesn’t it? The female panda called Nuan Nuan (“warmth”) was born in Malaysia (in Kuala Lumpur zoo, to be precise) on August 18 in 2015. So if she was born here, doesn’t…
Fully grown Asian elephants eat around 150kg of food every single day. Gourmands they are, yes. Yet by consuming so much vegetation they do more than just feed themselves; they also help keep complex ecosystems functioning well. For instance, by devouring larger plants they make way for smaller plants to…
Malaysians waste food. Plenty of food. They waste around 8,000 or 9,000 tons of it each day, to be precise. And during the month of Ramadan, which lasts from May 26 to June 24 this year, the amount of food waste rises exponentially. At Ramadan each year, some 270,000 tons…
If you ask Malaysian authorities, Lasah the elephant is well fed, well kept and well and truly happy at the Langkawi Elephant Adventures (LEA) amusement park on Langkawi island in Kedah, where he has been kept for years for the amusement of visitors. Recently, government-appointed wildlife officials and animal experts tasked with investigating…
When it comes to the annual haze this year, so far so good. Back in March, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar stressed that the yearly scourge of billowing smoke that can make life hell for days and weeks at a time across much of Malaysia would not happen in…
Another day, another major bust of wildlife traffickers. To wit: Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) officials have busted a major network of trafficker who were operating via social media. All we can say: Hallelujah! In the latest crackdown on the exotic pet trade, Perhilitan officials nabbed a total of 11 people…
A ban on all bauxite mining remains in place in Pahang, but that may not have stopped some operators from trying to resume their mining activities clandestinely. Villagers have drawn that conclusion after discovering two excavators in the village of Kampung Jeram. The local contractor reportedly said he had obtained a permit to…
Teach environmental conservationism at schools across Malaysia. That’s what the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry wants to do by introducing environmental education as a subject in Malaysian schools, the better to inculcate a love of the country’s abundant natural resources in youngsters. It’s a great idea, yes. “The ministry is serious…
A lot of wildlife trafficking in Malaysia takes place in the laissez-faire milieu of the cyber world, where traffickers have taken to hugely popular social media platforms like Facebook to buy and sell protected and endangered species in wanton abandon. Yet if Fakhrul Hatta Musa, deputy director of Wildlife and National Parks Department…
The moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang has been extended, extended again and then extended yet again since last January, when it was first imposed initially. Now, in a move that should please environmentalists and long-suffering Pahang locals alike, the government has decided to extend the ban yet again, for another…
There has been a moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang for almost a year, but that has not stopped some fly-by-night operators from continuing to extract the aluminum ore on the sly. So says Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar. He has pointed at the mounds of bauxite…
A community of indigenous people in Kelantan is up in arms and not unjustifiably so. Members of the Kelantan Network of Orang Asli Villages (JKOAK) blockaded roads to an area of the Gua Musung forest reserve, which they consider their ancestral land. The reason: they want to stop loggers decimating…
Malaysia is a major global hub of wildlife trafficking with the body parts of endangered animals coming into and out of the country with depressing regularity. The good news is that local officials are well aware of this fact. Better yet, they say they want to do something about it….