Orangutans in Borneo are critically endangered, suffering as they do from a variety of existential challenges. The grave challenges they face in the wild include habitat loss, forest fragmentation, encroaching development and the exotic wildlife trade. Now you can add another threat to that list: being hunted for their meat. Yes, you’ve read that right. According…

The World Wide Fund for Nature wants to have all the 200 or so tiger farms in Asia closed. That august goal, however, may have just suffered a major setback. Last year the notorious “Tiger Temple” in Thailand was closed down by local authorities after it had transpired that the Buddhist monastery’s…

If you are an animal and have a day to your name, you should be worried. Very worried. And so it is with pangolins. Those placid and quirky mammals have had the third Saturday in February designated as World Pangolin Day for the sixth straight year. The day serves to raise…

Lasah is fine, thank you very much. He isn’t lonely or sad or neglected or abused. Now if you could please stop bugging us about him, that would be much appreciated. This is essentially the gist of an answer that the management of the Langkawi Elephant Adventures Park (LEA) has given in…

The planet is warming. The polar ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. We are in for an impending environmental meltdown (literally). But there is not much we can do. Or is there? What if we could refreeze the ice at the Arctic artificially? Say, we could do that by building…

Living in a clean and healthy environment should not just be a bonus for Malaysians. It should be a constitutional right. So says the nation’s Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who has recommended adding “the right to a clean environment” to the list of liberties to which all Malaysian citizens are entitled. “While our…

They’re a persistent lot, are they not? Wildlife traffickers, that is. Malaysian authorities have been stepping up their efforts to clamp down on international smuggling networks that use the country as a regional transit point for the trafficking of ivory from Africa. That, though, has clearly not deterred ivory-smuggling syndicates. And so 2017 has started pretty…

Rampant littering has long been a problem across Malaysia, in some places reaching endemic proportions. Heaps of trash dumped on streets are not only unsightly; they are dangerous too, posing health hazards to people and threats to the environment. “Littering is a recurring problem that raises serious public health concerns which…

Malaysia has lots of forests left, despite decades of intensive deforestation across the country, but what the nation needs is more protection for more forests. So it’s encouraging that the federal government plans to gazette more wooded areas as permanent forest reserves. To wit: by 2020 the Peninsular Malaysia Forestry Department wants to…

Whatever you say or do in Malaysia, do not “insult” the high and mighty. This is a lesson that two environmentalists have just learned. Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil, president of Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka), and Norhayati Shahrom, the nonprofit’s administrator, were detained by police for allegedly making disparaging comments…

Wildlife crimes and corruption routinely go hand in hand. For starters, without certain officials willing to turn a blind eye to rampant trafficking (for kickbacks and other rewards), traffickers would have a much harder time. But the problem can go much deeper than that. A pervasive culture of bribery, money laundering and institutionalized…

Some of Malaysia’s most iconic and beloved animals are also its most endangered. They are beloved not because they are endangered; rather, they are endangered despite being beloved. This simple fact is something worth pondering. Take tigers. The very national identity of Malaysia is predicated on the majestic predators. Tigers are featured on the…

To protect Malaysia’s wildlife and environment, you have to invest in them. That is the gist of a call by Dionysius Sharma, who is executive director and CEO of WWF-Malaysia, on the country’s government. “Fiscal measures need to be put in place to assist the State governments in setting aside forests…

Wild animals face a variety of threats in Sabah from habitat loss to poaching. Sadly, we also need to add the thriving local bushmeat trade to that list. Local conservationists and animal lovers have been engaged in several educational campaigns to try and wean locals off the meat of wild…

If you want to see an example of what rampant air pollution can do, take a look at New Delhi. Air pollution in India’s capital has reached levels that are over 16 times the normal limit, forcing the country’s government to declare a national emergency. The situation has got so bad…

In its newly released Living Planet Report 2016, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has painted an alarming picture of the impending prospects of the planet’s wildlife. Unless we change course, the numbers of wild animals will have declined by a staggering 67% by the year 2020, a mere…