For Malaysian Muslims, saving the nation’s biodiversity is not only a civic but a religious duty as well. This is the message of a short video entitled “Harimau Selamanya” (“Tigers Forever”), which is featured on YouTube and urges citizens to protect Malaysia’s wildlife in the context of the Islamic faith. Created by…
Plastic waste has long been a curse on Malaysia’s environment, with discarded bags, containers and bottles littering cities, towns and the countrywide far and wide. That might now change in Perak and Johor. Legislators in both states are moving ahead with plans to ban the sale of polystyrene and plastic…
As environmental disasters go, oil spills are right up there with the worst forms of pollution, and Malaysia has had its fair share of them. Last year alone there was a total of 15 spills befouling sea waters, mostly along the beaches of Terengganu and Pahang. They were relatively small…
Routinely the only obstacles in the way of poachers out to hunt down yet more members of endangered species in Malaysia’s forests are the country’s wildlife officials. These officials are invariably understaffed and underpaid, but they have an important job to do: saving the country’s wildlife for posterity. In a…
If you think the current heat wave has made the temperature barely bearable outdoors, wait until global warming really starts turning up the thermostat. Average temperatures in Malaysia may rise by up to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. That’s a terrifying prospect, yes, but even a…
Examples of eco-friendliness can at times come from unlikely sources. Like police stations, for instance. The Island Force Operation Base on Mabul Island in Sabah has begun using hybrid green technology to power its premises. As Malaysia’s first police station to have done so, the island’s unit will rely largely…
Back in the good old days – say, a decade or so ago – youngsters learned about nature by living in it. These days many children, especially those living in urban communities, tend to have little direct access to the endless wonders of Malaysia’s natural environments outside of zoos and…
A love of the environment needs to start right at home. So does the mission to help save it. That’s the message that Andrew Wong, deputy chairman of Sibu’s Municipal Council in Sarawak, sought to relay to Malaysians, young and old. You can start doing so by adhering to the…
For the past six months, the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is believed to cause a variety of debilitating birth defects, including microcephaly (a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and shriveled brains), has been spreading far and wide across the tropics. To date it has infected…
Just five countries account for a whopping 60% of the plastic trash that ends up in the oceans. No, Malaysia isn’t one of them … but the country is still in the Top 10 sources of plastic waste globally. For shame. The five leading plastic polluters – China, Indonesia, the…
Take a trip in the rainforests of Sabah, and what you effectively do is to go on a bit of time travel. These forests are among the oldest in the world and were already here 140 million years ago when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. It’s ironic then, is it…
Endangered species may at times seem a bit like mythical creatures: they can be so elusive that rarely if ever may anyone catch sight of them in the wild. And so it has been with Sumatran rhinos. The critically endangered species was declared extinct last year in Malaysian Borneo, but…
For the first time in a century, conservationists have announced, the number of wild tigers has risen. Time to celebrate, right? Well, sort of. Recently conservation groups counted a total of wild 3,890 tigers from India to Russia to Malaysia (but with the exception of Myanmar, which, too, likely has dozens…
What with space at ground level becoming scarce in overpopulated urban environments, the way for cities to go is up. And up they will continue to go in decades to come, but this time in true green style if plans for eco-friendly “vertical” neighborhoods are anything to go by. One…
Last year the Subang Jaya Municipal Council, in Selangor, embarked on an ambitious project: it set out to turn organic waste into compost and energy at its recently opened integrated biomass centre in Bukit Puchong. By doing so, the council set a fine example for communal sustainability in Malaysia. This…
Malaysian wildlife protection laws have made for a bit of patchwork, but lawmakers are getting ready to fix that. Natural Resources and Environment Minister Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar has announced that his administration is working on a comprehensive biodiversity law that will seek to protect the nation’s natural environments…