Snow leopards are elusive creatures facing a host of challenges. They continue to be poached regularly and they also have fewer prey animals. It doesn’t help either that many of them live in armed conflict-prone areas in countries like Afghanistan where they are at increased risk of being killed. Yet…

The photo, taken with a smartphone, is rather blurry and shows a wild tiger walking at a leisurely pace across a field beside three peacocks and a pair of banteng. There would be nothing unusual in such a sight in areas where tigers still roam, but there is this intriguing…

No doubt you’ve seen kids do it: seeking the attention of their pal, they don an old sack and begin larking around. They playfully accost their friend, and when their friend just doesn’t get it, they carry on clowning around inside the sack so as to draw some laughs and…

Beautiful beaches. World-class diving spots. Scenic forests. Picturesque landscapes. Misty mountaintops. Fantastic biodiversity. Malaysia is a land of unsurpassed natural beauty with unique treasures. Not surprisingly, tourists from around the world keep flocking to the country. Last year alone nearly 27 million visitors came, generating MR82 billion in tourism income….

Malayan tigers. Malayan sun bears. Bornean orangutans. Bornean pygmy elephants. Sunda pangolins. Clouded leopards. Marbled cats. Helmeted hornbills. Hawksbill turtles. The list goes on. The list of endangered animals in Malaysia, that is. May 20 is Endangered Species Day, which has been held for a dozen years worldwide by conservationists…

April 22 is Earth Day. Time to celebrate. Yes, but what? Earth Day was established in 1970 in the United States, at the height of America’s boisterous counter-culture revolution, with the aim of fostering a renewed environmental consciousness among Americans to better protect Planet Earth. In 1990, Earth Day went global, extending its reach to 141…

Lying in wait within forests in Malaysia and much of the rest of Southeast Asia are pernicious killers. There they are underfoot and in the undergrowth, waiting for new victims to ensnare. Literally ensnare because we mean snares. They tend to be homemade contraptions fashioned from wire or cable and set…

When we think of who is responsible for the depletion of natural resources and the impending extinction of rare species like tigers, we tend to think it’s someone else: poachers, loggers, greedy business folk. But what if we, too, are personally responsible in our own way? According to a new…

It’s a poignant irony: one of the world’s most endangered species is also one of its mightiest. Tigers have fallen on hard times throughout their ranges across Asia with only a few thousand of them left in the wild from Siberia to India to Malaysia. At every place where numerous tigers once…

Trees are trees and they are worth protecting no matter where they are. That’s the rationale behind a call by the Penang Nature Conservation Society (PENCONS) on local authorities to protect the island’s trees not only in Penang’s forests but also in its urban areas. What with the high rate of…

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out: a dead sun bear was found floating in the Kinabatangan River, in Sabah, with both its hind paws missing. The witnesses: two Swedish tourists on a river cruise. The likely culprits: wildlife traffickers who killed the bear for…

The Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Sabah state is home to rich and varied ecosystems of exotic species, featuring a photogenic kaleidoscope of iconic animals: proboscis monkeys, several species of hornbills, the Asian pygmy elephant and Borneo’s emblematic orangutan. The reserve’s forests are at constant risk of further environmental degradation…

It’s easy to get despondent about the state of the environment – and not without good cause. Many natural habitats are increasingly threatened, many species have been driven to the edge of extinction, and environmental pollution has continued unabated. But now here is some good news: Malaysian forests are doing…