Malaysia's Ramsar sites

Sakina Mohamed Benama 6 Jul 10;

This is the last of the two part series on Malaysia's Ramsar sites

KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 (Bernama) -- If you think that our wetlands have little to do with our survival, think again.

Our wetlands act as the natural treatment plant for natural and man-made pollutants. Not only that, it can even extract the nutrients from polluted water or air.

So, what does this have to do with humans? Well, in filtering dirty air and water, it ensures that humankind gets sustainable fresh water supply and breathe in clean air.

Therefore, the destruction to our wetlands will definitely affect the well-being and finance of the country.

Conservation of wetland ecosystems is essential not only for sustainable fresh water supply but also for preserving biodiversity.

WHAT ARE WETLANDS?

Environmental scientist Dr Nather Khan Ibrahim says the term wetlands cover mainly inland, coastal and marine natural habitats of permanent or temporary water bodies or wet areas.

In Malaysia, the wetlands are mainly freshwater swamp forests, peat swamp forests, coastal and estuarine mangroves, natural rivers and lakes, flood plains (estuary), and coastal areas, says Dr Nather Khan, the former Malaysian and Southeast Asian Coordinator for the then Asian Wetland Bureau.

The more recognisable uses for wetlands are for water transport, recreation, tourism and fish breeding. However, Dr Nather Khan says the wetlands have hundreds of other uses, values and functions.

"Each wetland has soil, water, plants and animals that are unique to it. Each one can be classified into three, based on its products, functions and attributes," he said in an interview with Bernama.

Wetlands classified under products produce forest resources such as timber, medicine, resins, honey and fruits. They also provide wildlife resources such as food, biodiversity, shelter and even for aesthetic purposes. Some provide fish breeding grounds, while others provide forage resources, agricultural resources and water supply.

VITAL FOR LIVELIHOOD

Meanwhile, those classified under functions are vital for our livelihood. "These wetlands help in groundwater recharge and discharge, for flood control, shoreline stabilization and erosion control."

Many would also be amazed to know that our wetlands play a big role in protecting us from the adverse effects of climate change. They provide storm protection, protect us from tsunamis, serve as windbreakers and even help in microclimate stabilisation.

Wetlands classified for their attributes are those that play a role in biological diversity, and are the habitats for rare plants and animals and is unique to our culture and national heritage.

Tigers, tapirs and crocodiles can mostly be found in wetlands, like certain species of flora that cannot be found elsewhere.

Therefore wetland affects every aspect of human life, including quality of life, natural resources, food and water supply.

"It can also adversely affect our climate and even rainfall," says Dr Nather Khan.

CHALLENGES IN PRESERVING OUR WETLANDS

There are six Ramsar sites in Malaysia with the largest one in Sabah, covering 78,000 hectares. The rest are the Kuching Wetlands National Park (Sarawak), Pulau Kukup (Johor), Sungai Pulai (Johor), Tanjung Piai (Johor), and Tasek Bera (Pahang).

Dr Nather Khan, who was part of the team that helped initiate and mobilise all the necessary groundwork to designate and declare Tasek Bera as Malaysia's first Ramsar Site, says there are several challenges to protecting our wetlands.

Encroachment and illegal clearance by local settlers and communities and poor enforcement by government agencies have been some of the issues, he revealed.

However, he says two of the biggest problems in preserving our wetlands are land clearance for plantations and aquaculture.

The plantations in question are mostly oil palm estates and mills. Clearance of land for such purposes almost always produce massive amounts of pollution from agricultural and chemical wastes.

"Constant discharge of oil palm mill effluents, which have high amount of BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), ammonia and nutrient components affects water quality and soil characteristics of the wetlands," says Dr Nather Khan.

Although wetlands in general can tolerate natural pollutants, it can only accommodate a certain level of human interference.

"However, pollutants discharged en masse from oil palm mills can cause the eutrophication of wetland water bodies," he says.

Eutrophication means an increase of mineral and organic nutrients that promote proliferation of plant life, especially those like algae, which reduce dissolved oxygen content and often cause the extinction of other organisms.

POLLUTION FROM OIL PALM ESTATES

The domino effect to this would be an alteration of the entire natural wetland into a new type of habitat that is devoid of all its previous uses, products, functions and attributes.

Dr Nather Khan says oil palm mills should not simply discharge any amount of effluents to the Ramsar site or any other wetlands, as it is supposed to be free from any human intervention and pollutants.

"But the companies involved may try to justify their actions by saying that that the pollutants are treated up to the level that is approved by the Department of Environment."

Given the important role it plays to our livelihood, Malaysia must pay greater heed to how much development it allows at wetlands areas. Is it worth it to destroy truly sophisticated, valuable resources that have been part of our heritage for thousands of years, in the name of short-term gain? The question shouldn't be a difficult one to answer.

-- BERNAMA

Oil Palm Estates Major Threat To Ramsar Site
Sakina Mohamed Bernama 5 Jul 10;

This is the first of a two part series on Malaysis's Ramsar sites

SANDAKAN, July 5 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has internationally-recognised wetlands, and the largest one is the 78,000-hectare Ramsar Site in Sabah.

Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance, designated under the Ramsar Convention, an international agreement signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. It provides for the conservation and good use of wetlands.

The Ramsar site in Sabah covers the Trusan Kinabatangan, Kuala Segama-Maruap Mangrove Forest Reserve and the Kulamba Wildlife Forest Reserve located at the lower Kinabatangan-Segama, accounting nearly 60 percent of the remaining mangrove forests in Malaysia.

Malaysia has employed the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in protecting the site, which is part of the efforts under the Bornean Biodiversity and Ecosystems Conservation (BBEC) Programme in Sabah. The programme is now in Phase II.

JICA helps by providing technical expertise and advice in implementing good conservation activities. However, BBEC II Chief Advisor Motohiro Hasegawa tells Bernama that a few challenges need to be sorted out or the maintenance of Sabah's biodiversity-rich Ramsar Site will be an uphill task.

POLLUTION FROM OIL PALM ESTATES

The major threat to the Sabah Ramsar Site is clearly the pollution from oil palm plantations, says Hasegawa. Other threats, he says, are limited. The Ramsar site is mostly situated at lower part of a large river basin, he says, so unless good conservation activities are imposed in the upper area of this river basin, the site will be threatened.

He says that the upper areas of the Ramsar site is the Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon which are pristine, untouched, forests. However, oil palm mills and plantations clutter the middle part. And where there are plantations and mills there are industrial and agricultural wastes, two of the hardest effluents to treat. None of which bodes well for the protection of our largest wetland.

"There aren't too many pristine forests in Sabah like those in the upper area of the site, so that part is well-protected.

"But the middle part is completely covered by oil palm plantations. Since our wetlands are internationally-recognised, we have to conduct awareness programmes so that oil palm plantations direct their operations toward conservation," he says.

"Public awareness on the issue is very important."

He says all river basins are now considered conservation areas, so there is good reason to insist that the oil palm mills located in the middle part of the basins shift their operation towards conservation.

"We plan to hold the first oil palm plantation conservation workshop in July," says Hasegawa. "We'll invite them and introduce the latest technology to treat effluents from oil palm mills, techniques to reduce sediments and so on." He says control of effluents from mills is probably one of the most difficult challenges, but if not tackled will result in a bleak future for the Ramsar site.

"We have an idea to promote the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certification, which we plan to introduce to all plantation and mills within 10 years," he said.

COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE IS THE KEY

A typical problem in the governance of forests and conservation areas is multiple agencies being in charge without cooperation in governance.

Hasegawa says part of the problem is power imbalance, where some agencies are given more governing authority than others.

"There are powerful institutions like the Forestry Department in Sabah, and then there is the Sabah Wildlife Department, which is rather weak.

"If you have strong and weak guys, it's hard to have cooperative governance," he says.

However, Hasegawa says 20 years of experience tells him that it was a very common problem not only in Malaysia but in many other countries.

So, what do we need to do? Conservation governance, he says.

Currently, the Forest Department is in charge of an aspect while the Wildlife Department controls another.

"These actions are fragmented. We have to develop a mechanism to link up many agencies and together work on a consolidated conservation effort or else efforts might be wasted and we don't want that.

"We need to link up these efforts and work towards integrated conservation," he says.

A closed sector approach is also very important, he says.

"In doing this, third party intervention is very efficient and useful.

"JICA, being outside of the Sabah and Malaysian bureaucracy, has been using this approach since Phase I of BBEC in 2002. It really helps in linking up the agencies towards a common purpose," says Hasegawa.

The Sabah Biodiversity Enactment 2000 has helped towards the purpose by providing a legal path to establish a sole body to oversee and coordinate state-wide biodiversity conservation.

The body in question is the Biodiversity Council and its secretariat, the Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SBC), in which JICA has deployed its volunteers to help with as well.

JICA'S ROLE

The conservation system employed by JICA in BBEC I and II under the Convention of Biodiversity, is the ecosystem approach. This means they look at the environment holistically and use adaptive management to operate it.

Hasegawa says: "What it does is a systematic and cyclic process that identifies environmental problems based on data. Based on the problems we create counter measures, we implement them and then monitor how they work. "If that doesn't work, we come up with different counter measure."

JICA's presence in Malaysia is through official request by the Malaysian government, and its role in BBEC is to provide technical assistance to Malaysia by sending Japanese professionals to work full-time with local counterparts.

Hasegawa reminds that JICA's role in BBEC II is to support the Sabah Biodiversity Enactment and to facilitate integrated conservation, so much credit is goes to the effort of the relevant agencies in the state.

"We are merely supporting SBC to link up the seemingly fragmented conservation efforts of various agencies, in addition to providing as much technical assistance as we can towards conservation efforts," he says.

JICA is an independent administrative institute, which implements Official Development Assistance projects of Japan. It acts as a bridging agent between the people of Japan and developing countries, advancing international cooperation through sharing of knowledge and experience.

JICA also contributes to international interests and goals such as eradication of poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, reduction of child mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability.

The Ramsar Convention is the informal name of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat. The Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands. Malaysia ratified the Convention on 10 March 1995 and its national focal point agency is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The other 5 Ramsar sites in Malaysia are the Kuching Wetlands National Park (Sarawak), Pulau Kukup (Johor), Sungai Pulai (Johor), Tanjung Piai (Johor), and Tasek Bera (Pahang).

-- BERNAMA

Sabah wetlands face pollution effects from oil palm estates
The Star 9 Jul 10;

SANDAKAN: Malaysia has internationally-recognised wetlands, and the largest one is the 78,000ha Ramsar Site in Sabah.

Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance, designated under the Ramsar Conven­tion, an international agreement signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. It provides for the conservation and good use of wetlands.

The Ramsar site in Sabah covers the Trusan Kinabatangan, Kuala Segama-Maruap Mangrove Forest Reserve and the Kulamba Wildlife Forest Reserve located at the lower Kinabatangan-Segama, accounting for nearly 60% of the remaining mangrove forests in Malaysia.

Malaysia has employed the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in protecting the site, which is part of the efforts under the Bornean Biodiversity and Ecosystems Conservation (BBEC) Programme in Sabah.

The programme is now in Phase II.

JICA helps by providing technical expertise and advice in implementing good conservation activities.

However, BBEC II chief advisor Motohiro Hasegawa told Bernama that a few challenges needed to be sorted out or the maintenance of Sabah’s biodiversity-rich Ramsar Site would be an uphill task.

Hasegawa said the major threat to the Sabah Ramsar Site was the pollution from oil palm plantations.

Other threats, he said, were limited.

The Ramsar site was mostly situated at the lower part of a large river basin, he said, so unless good conservation activities were imposed in the upper area of this river basin, the site would be threatened.

He said the upper areas of the Ramsar site was the Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon which were pristine, untouched, forests. However, oil palm mills and plantations clutter the middle part.

“And where there are plantations and mills, there are industrial and agricultural wastes, two of the hardest effluents to treat. None of which bodes well for the protection of our largest wetland,” he said.

“There aren’t too many pristine forests in Sabah like those in the upper area of the site, so that part is well-protected.

“But the middle part is completely covered by oil palm plantations. Since our wetlands are internationally-recognised, we have to conduct awareness programmes so that oil palm plantations direct their operations toward conservation,” he said.

“We plan to hold the first oil palm plantation conservation workshop in July.

“We will introduce the latest technology to treat effluents from oil palm mills, techniques to reduce sediments and so on,” said Hasegawa.

He said control of effluents from mills was probably one of the most difficult challenges, but if not tackled would result in a bleak future for the Ramsar site.

“We have an idea to promote the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certification, which we plan to introduce to all plantation and mills within 10 years,” he said.

A typical problem in the governance of forests and conservation areas is multiple agencies being in charge without cooperation in governance.

Hasegawa said part of the problem was power imbalance, where some agencies were given more governing authority than others. “There are powerful institutions like the Forestry Department in Sabah, and then there is the Sabah Wildlife Department, which is rather weak.

“If you have strong and weak guys, it’s hard to have cooperative governance,” he said.

However, Hasegawa said it was a very common problem not only in Malaysia but in many other countries.

So, what do we need to do? Conservation governance, hesaid.

Currently, the Forestry Depart­ment is in charge of an aspect while the Wildlife Department controls another.

“These actions are fragmented. We have to develop a mechanism to link up many agencies and together work on a consolidated conservation effort or else efforts might be wasted and we don’t want that.

“We need to link up these efforts and work towards integrated conservation,” he said.

A closed sector approach is also very important, he says.

“In doing this, third party intervention is very efficient and useful.

“JICA, being outside of the Sabah and Malaysian bureaucracy, has been using this approach since Phase I of BBEC in 2002. It really helps in linking up the agencies towards a common purpose,” said Hasegawa.

The Sabah Biodiversity Enact­ment 2000 has helped towards the purpose by providing a legal path to establish a sole body to oversee and coordinate state-wide biodiversity conservation.

The body in question is the Biodiversity Council and its secretariat, the Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SBC), in which JICA has deployed its volunteers to help with as well.

The conservation system employed by JICA in BBEC I and II under the Convention of Biodiversity, is the ecosystem approach. This means they look at the environment holistically and use adaptive management to operate it.

Hasegawa said: “What it does is a systematic and cyclic process that identifies environmental problems based on data. Based on the problems we create counter measures, we implement them and then monitor how they work. “If that doesn’t work, we come up with different counter measures.”

JICA’s presence in Malaysia is through official request by the Malaysian government, and its role in BBEC is to provide technical assistance to Malaysia by sending Japanese professionals to work full-time with local counterparts.

Hasegawa reminded that JICA’s role in BBEC II was to support the Sabah Biodiversity Enactment and to facilitate integrated conservation, so much credit goes to the effort of the relevant agencies in the state.

“We are merely supporting SBC to link up the seemingly fragmented conservation efforts of various agencies, in addition to providing as much technical assistance as we can towards conservation efforts,” he said.

JICA is an independent administrative institute, which implements Official Development Assistance projects of Japan. It acts as a bridging agent between the people of Japan and developing countries, advancing international cooperation through sharing of knowledge and experience.

JICA also contributes to international interests and goals such as eradication of poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, reduction of child mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability.

The Ramsar Convention is the informal name of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Water­fowl Habitat. The Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands. Malaysia ratified the Convention on March 10, 1995 and its national focal point agency is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The other five Ramsar sites in Malaysia are the Kuching Wetlands National Park (Sarawak), Pulau Kukup (Johor), Sungai Pulai (Johor), Tanjung Piai (Johor), and Tasek Bera (Pahang). — Bernama