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…
Proceeds from the sale of trees felled in the forests of Borneo may have been used to build shiny new homes within gated communities for Americans in the desert of Arizona, in the United States, charges Sarawak Report. “[W]e have discovered that it is here,” writes the investigative news website…
Economic growth and environmental protection can be strange bedfellows with the former frequently coming at the expense of the latter. But that will no longer be so in Sabah – not if we are to believe the state’s Chief Minister Musa Aman. Musa has called on environmental groups to join…
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…
Malaysia is on course to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions significantly in its bid to help tackle the global threat of climate change. The country seeks to reduce those emissions by 40% overall by 2020 and has already succeeded in reaching the 33% mark. That’s according to Prime Minister Najib…
Chalk a victory up to grassroots activism. And a giant victory at that. Sarawak’s government has officially backed down from its plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Baram river, following fierce opposition to it from local indigenous communities. Local villagers had been fighting tooth and nail against the proposed dam…
Prime Minister Najib Razak is not only an impeccably upright politician but he is also a protector of Malaysia’s natural environments. Or so he says. Najib has been embroiled in an epic corruption scandal amidst persistent allegations that as much as US$1 billion might have been siphoned off from the…
Many Malaysians feel strongly about the wellbeing of their country’s natural environment. They take great pride in the stunning diversity of Malaysia’s world-renowned exotic wildlife; they keep up to date about environmental issues; and they wax rightfully indignant about blatant cases of poaching, illegal logging and environmental pollution. The question,…
Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar has been in the news lately and for all the right reasons. He’s warned Malaysians of the climatic threat facing the nation’s scenic coral reefs and has issued a call on citizens to better protect their nation’s endangered species by refusing to engage in any…
Wildlife crimes in Malaysia are daily occurrences. Rather, make that thrice daily occurrences. According to official figures, a total of 4,040 such crimes were recorded in a four-year period between 2011 and 2015, amounting to at least three wildlife crimes on average every single day. And that is, of course,…
The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), a leading Malaysian think-tank, wants to catch monkeys. No, not those arboreal acrobats that enliven the canopies of the country’s forests. They ought to be left to their own natural ways, thank you very much. Rather, the think-tank would like to see…
First came a fatwa by Islamic authorities against the poaching of protected species in Terengganu. Now comes another equally welcome religious edict issued by the Perlis Fatwa Committee: a ruling against polluting the environment. Through that fatwa, the committee has made it “haram,” or forbidden, for Muslims to pollute Malaysia’s…
The fictional 19th century pirate Sandokan, created in 1883 by Emilio Salgari, an Italian author of exotic action-adventure swashbucklers, would go on to become a character beloved by generations of Europeans thanks to a series of movies and television series that featured the Bornean prince turned pirate cum anti-colonialist warrior…
Seventeen. That’s the number of targets that the Malaysian government’s revised National Policy on Biological Diversity contains for the coming decade. Among the new targets: conserving a fifth of terrestrial areas and inland waters as well as a tenth of coastal and marine areas by 2025. The government also promises…
Pandas. Don’t we love them? That cute teddy bearish look. That cuddly, rotund body. Those cool black patches over the eyes with matching ears. That groovy long-sleeved black vest over their spotless white coat. Adorable. It’s no surprise then that even relatively routine events in the lives of these endangered…
A lesson from the recent bauxite mining fiasco in Pahang, which has inflicted massive damage on the local environment, has been this: local politicians and authorities cannot be trusted to have nature’s and local people’s best interests in mind. They are supposed to be in charge, and yet when push…