Conservation
Conservation
The Conservation division within MNS sees to the effective management of existing protected areas as well as to establish new protected areas.
- To secure an integrated and comprehensive Protected Area system in Malaysia.
- Build a knowledge base of key habitats and species with the aim to disseminate this information to decision makers.
- To identify threats to the survival of habitats and species in the wild.
The MNS Conservation initiatives are also guided by key documents such as the Important Bird Area (IBA) data which has been compiled since 1997 with the assistance of the MNS Bird Conservation Council and Birdlife International. Conservation is also guided by the MNS. Blueprint for Conservation (established in1974) which calls for the conservation of notable areas such as national parks, reserves, islands, national monuments, wildlife sanctuaries, marine reserves and research sites in Peninsular Malaysia.
The focal areas in which our Conservation initiatives work are:
Habitat & Sites
In the last 15 years, Malaysia has lost around 60,000 species of life forms a year as a result of natural areas being cleared to make way for development, logging, plantations, housing and various other human exploits.
Species
Malaysia is the twelfth riches mega-centre for biodiversity in the world and we have over 185,000 types of animal species and 15,000 of flowering plants (EPU,1993) but unfortunately, our biodiversity is under threat and we are listed under the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red Data list.
People
Our local communities work is spread across the indigenous, rural and urban communities. All our initiatives with local communities are geared towards empowering them in ensuring better governance of important habitats or species.
Policy
Our policy and advocacy work has been the foundation of the Society’s successes thus far. This is done in many ways, be it from the support and commitment of our members across the country with state level advocacy, or with the work of the Secretariat with Federal and State agencies.