When we think of illegal wildlife trafficking, we routinely picture organized gangs of poachers and traffickers who keep on relentlessly denuding forests of their protected species so as to sell them far and wide across national borders with some help from corrupt officials who are willing to turn a blind…

Saving endangered species like the iconic Malayan tiger is a national priority. The trouble is, most Malaysians don’t care. Or at least not enough to lend a hand. This is according to the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT), whose members bemoan the fact that their intensive nationwide campaigns to…

You may think of peat swamps as but inviting stretches of foul-smelling territory. That they may well be, yes, but they are far more than that. Peat swamps are home to a great deal of biodiversity with a fascinating kaleidoscope of species. Better yet: peat bogs are excellent absorbers of…

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…

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…

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…

Hornbills, as their very name suggests, are gaudy birds distinguished primarily by their enormous curved beaks with a protruding crest atop their upper mandibles. Known as a casque, it is a wedge of keratin – the same substance that forms human hair and nails – which male hornbills use primarily for…

Malaysians – let’s be honest – tend to be wastrels. We waste up to 300 liters of water per person a day on average, and as if that wasn’t enough we also waste plenty of food. As much as 9,000 tons of food is wasted a day around the nation,…

Since he came into office two years ago Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem has made all the right moves and noises about conservationism. He has decried the “desecration” of Borneo’s extraordinary biodiversity; promised decisive action against illegal loggers; and recently scrapped plans for a controversial new dam on the Baram…

People often do the wrong things for the right reasons. They may seek the companionship of pets, yet rather than settle for domesticated animals like cats and dogs, they may decide to own members of more exotic species –especially “cute” creatures like slow lorises and binturongs. Wishing to have pets…

We’re more than two months into a three-month moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang, but not all is well around Kuantan. Stockpiles of the aluminum ore at Kuantan Port, for instance, have yet to be fully cleaned up. And that’s just at the Port. For months on end a thick…

Oil palm plantations are – wait for it – great microcosms of biodiversity. If, that is, we are to believe Pierre Bois d’Enghien, an agronomist and environmental expert. Writing in an op-ed in The Star newspaper and citing several studies from around the world, Bois d’Enghien lays out his case….

A perennial feature of the official stance on Malaysia’s beleaguered environment is that officials tend to talk tough, but they end up acting rather less decisively when push comes to shove – if, that is, they decide to act at all. In Sarawak, that might be about to change, and here’s…

A disturbing phenomenon has puzzled and alarmed conservationists: wee little elephant calves are frequently found wandering abandoned and alone, without their mothers and herds. Over the past three years a total of 15 abandoned calves have been discovered near villages on the fringes of Sabah’s forests or inside palm oil…

They maim and kill and cause untold suffering. They can sever limbs and cause severe injuries. Unless freed in time from them, animals, large and small, may die of thirst, starve to death, or become prey to predators as they are pinned down and unable to escape. In other words,…

When it comes to the environment, truly good news is hard to come by. And even when there is some good news, if it sounds too good to be true, it might well be. And so it could have proved with a recent report, which Clean Malaysia also showcased, that…