The world’s oceans (you may well have heard this before) are fast becoming deluged with endless tons of plastic rubbish. Very little of those massive amounts of plastic waste is biodegradable, meaning most of it will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to degrade naturally. In the meantime, it…

Rhinoceroses are generally docile herbivores which want nothing more than left to their own devices in the wild, or whatever is left of it. Unfortunately for the animals, whose very Greek name means “nose-horn,” rhinoceroses sport a conical growth of keratin on the tops of their noses, which they employ…

The ruthless murder of wild tiger continues, this time in neighboring Indonesia. Three men, who are believed to have been members of a wildlife smuggling ring, were arrested for poaching critically endangered Sumatran tigers in the protected forests of Mount Leuser National Park in Sumatra. Police officials found tiger bones,…

An area off the northern coast of Sabah is just about to become a protected marine zone – the largest of its kind in the country. The Marine Protected Area, which includes some of the nation’s most scenic coral reefs, will encompass three existing marine parks with a scattering of…

Forty-three. That’s how many rivers in Malaysia are badly polluted. That may not seem too bad, considering that there are 473 rivers in total around the country that are monitored for their levels of pollution, and so 43 is less than a tenth of them. The trouble is that another…

Even with the parlous state of wildlife preservation, it is rare to witness the slow but seemingly inexorable death of entire ecosystems in real time right before your eyes. Yet that’s what’s happening to the region’s coral reefs far and wide. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, a wonder of the planet’s…

Come June 15, bauxite mining will resume in Pahang. Or maybe not. The federal government is mulling extending the temporary ban further still to allow more time for operators and state officials to comply with more rigorous rules and regulations. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are being currently designed and…

This should come as no surprise to Malaysians, especially those who are familiar with the sorry state of affairs when it comes to extensive deforestation and wildlife poaching: The country is a leading exporter of illegally logged wood and is a hub of wildlife trafficking. That’s according to the United…

On the morning of May 22, hundreds of people got on their bicycles in Kuching and started making their way en masse along two predetermined routes, one longer, another shorter. Clean good fun? Certainly. But by pedaling together, participants also hoped to contribute to a green cause. Or two causes,…

Dismal. That’s how an animal rights activist describes the state of affairs in Malaysian zoos. Not only do the country’s zoos keep animals in cramped and “decrepit” enclosures where they suffer from “appalling neglect,” but they do so in willing violation of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010. So insists Sean…

All right, let’s be frank: it’s often locals (not all of them, to be sure, but quite a few) who stand in the way of wildlife conservation in Borneo. For quite some time, officials in Sarawak and Sabah have been waging a battle, with varying degrees of success, against poachers,…

A basic principle of economics is supply and demand. When there is demand for a product, someone will be willing to supply it. At what cost to the environment that demand is met, however, is another matter altogether. And so it has proved with the mining of bauxite in Pahang….

Coral bleaching. The very term evokes something ominous – and an ominous development it indeed is. As water temperatures rise, often as a result of climate change-triggered heat waves, corals (fragile creatures as they are) begin to turn white. That’s because warmer water temperatures cause corals to shed the zooxanthellae…

Next time you sip your coffee, think about this: the grounds that are used to make your morning cuppa can do plenty more than just give you a much-needed boost of caffeine. They can be used for paving roads, for example. Seriously. Australian engineers have devised a unique way for…

Malaysia is among the world’s leading nations when it comes to reductions in greenhouse gases. If, that is, Prime Minister Najib Razak is correct … or to be believed. The country, he says, has achieved a 35% reduction in its greenhouse gases by the end of last year and is…

Among the most famous examples of the harm that plastic waste can inflict on aquatic animals is the case of Peanut the turtle. At a young age the wild sea turtle got caught in a ring of a discarded rubbery six-pack holder, and over time, as her body grew, she became permanently…