Nine and a half tons. That’s how much ivory Malaysia has just destroyed. And that’s a good thing too, for all of that ivory had been seized over the years from wildlife traffickers. Malaysian officials hope that by publicly destroying the massive haul of African elephant tusks in an industrial…

This year’s El Nino has brought plenty of drought and extensive heat, but many locals have been making things plenty worse still – by setting fires left, right and center nationwide. Within just the first 10 days of April, the Malaysia Fire and Rescue Department (JBPM) recorded a total of…

If you thought the current heat wave with simultaneous droughts was bad enough, you might want to brace yourself: it’s but a mere foretaste of what’s to come. And not just in Malaysia but globally. Scientists are warning that among its myriad adverse effects climate change will likely bring about…

Corals are fragile things. Even relatively minor changes in median water temperatures can destroy them. And as the world continues to warm as a result of climate change, Malaysia’s stunning but beleaguered reefs may well be doomed. But now comes a glimmer of hope for the future of reefs around…

Malaysian politicians aren’t exactly renowned for taking responsibility. They are, however, prone to occasional bouts of candor. It was during such a moment that Prime Minister Najib Razak owned up to his government’s failure to prevent the environmental calamity caused by rampant bauxite mining in Pahang. “Of course, sometimes we…

Construction workers at a building site for a flyover in Paya Terubong on Penang came across something truly extraordinary – a giant python. And not just any python either but possibly the longest python ever caught alive: she measured around 8 meters in length and weighed around 250kg. The pregnant…

A problem with much of environmentalism is that whereas most people agree with its goals of saving species and protecting nature (or what’s left of it), they may be rather less likely to be on board when it comes to personally doing something about them. Let’s call this the “let…

Sea turtles often fall prey to a commonly used device that is not meant for them: fishing nets. Scores of the placid reptiles perish after getting entangled in nets by drowning or starving or suffering incapacitating injuries. But here come British scientists to the rescue. Conservation biologists at the University…

The rare turtles, destined for Kuala Lumpur, were packed tightly into cardboard boxes sealed shut with duct tape. By the time Pakistani wildlife officials in Karachi discovered them, all but 13 the 62 freshwater turtles had suffocated through a lack of oxygen. “They were wrapped in such a way that…

Ceaseless habitat loss and relentless poaching driving tigers into extinction. Sound familiar? It should. This time, though, it has happened in Cambodia. Once tigers roamed much of the nearby Southeast Asian nation. Now they’re all gone – or, as biologists put it, “functionally extinct” with no breeding populations left in…

And then there were none – orangutans left at Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort & Spa, that is. In a move celebrated by Malaysian conservationists as an important victory, the last two orangutans held at the luxury resort in Kota Kinabalu have now been sent to the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in…

Let’s breathe a sigh of relief: the three-month ban on bauxite mining in Pahang, which was scheduled to expire on April 15, has been extended for another three months. “It is important for us to safeguard the environment,” Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, minister of Natural Resources and Environment, noted after…

Once the coastal areas of Selangor were home to plenty of flora and fauna, thanks to their abundant mangrove forests. Fish and cockles proliferated galore in nearby waters, providing steady incomes to local fishermen. But that was then. By now, most of the mangroves have been felled or degraded, with…

Oil palm cultivation has been a boon to Malaysia’s economy, no question about it. But at what price to the environment? Vast swaths of forest and peatland have been decimated to make way for plantations, triggering a series of acute environmental crises across much of the nation. We’ve long known…

When it comes to wildlife sanctuaries, the bigger, the better, obviously. But here’s a counter-intuitive idea: What if even relatively diminutive sanctuaries can make a difference in preserving a degree of biodiversity in heavily urbanized settings? They can, at least for certain species and in certain settings, according to the…

They are relentless. Wildlife traffickers, that is. They keep trying to smuggle endangered species out of Malaysia and they keep trying to smuggle them in too so as to sell them on the black market. A case in point: Two Malaysian men, bound for Kuala Lumpur, were arrested at Jakarta’s…