People
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. For example, our work with the indigenous communities of Semai in Gopeng was with the aim of stopping them from harvesting the buds of the Rafflesia flowers and selling the Rajah Brooke Birdwing butterflies. Our work provided them with an alternative income to sustain their livelihoods.
LAMIBA is a specially tailored programme to train birdwatchers in the identification and monitoring of birds for the conservation of Important Bird Areas (IBA) in Malaysia. BirdLife Partners from Denmark (DOF) and MNS Selangor Branch Bird Group helped to train the first batch of LAMIBA trainers which comprised Branch Bird Group members and MNS staff. Subsequently, these trainers conducted State workshops to further strengthen or initiate their respective bird groups. Data collected from monitoring exercises are valuable contributions towards conservation.
Anyone interested in contributing towards conserving IBAs and learning more about bird monitoring can participate in the programme by joining the MNS Branch Bird Groups. For further queries please contact: hod.conservation@mns.org.my
PPTP is a programme which allows participants to understand the mechanisms of public participation in the process of land use planning through examples, review techniques, discussions and hands-on training. The programme was first initiated in 2003, through the MNS Centre for Environmental Training, Research and Education (CENTRE) which hopes to encourage public interest in land use decision making.
Structure and local plans are carried out by states and districts respectively, and determines the geographical location and type of land use and development that will be pursued for the next 10 to 20 years. By participating in this process, you can help ensure the best use of the land while ensuring the protection of your favourite recreational park or bird-watching spot.
Reputed to possess high levels of biodiversity, Belum-Temengor is one of the last remaining frontiers that support sizable populations of large birds such as hornbills.
During the second expedition in 1998 (at Sg. Tan Hain, Belum Forest Reserve), the identity of these Aceros hornbills was confirmed as the Plain-pouched Hornbills Aceros subruficollis. This confirmed the presence of a previously unrecorded species of hornbill in Malaysia, making Belum-Temengor one of the two sites in the country with 10 hornbill species to date.
Marking a new country record in 1999, the Plain-pouched Hornbill became a fascinating species needing attention, simply because the numbers in this biologically diverse site were unprecedented anywhere else in the world, putting Belum-Temengor on the map as one of global conservation importance.
This served as a catalyst for the MNS Hornbill Conservation Project which strives to gain knowledge and information on hornbills in order to conserve their home, the Belum-Temengor Forest Complex.
The Hornbill survey was incepted in February 2004, made possible with the support from a number of grants and foundations, namely, Rufford Small Grant, Nagao Natural Environment Foundation, Asia Bird Fund, Leica-Forktail Award, British American Tobacco (Malaysia), Singapore Zoo and Sime Plantations Sdn Bhd. Although the hornbill survey focuses on the Plain-pouched Hornbill (Aceros subruficollis), other hornbill species were also noted of when observed during survey trips.
The Hornbill survey team led by Yeap Chin Aik, which consists of MNS staffs and experienced members, periodically make trips into Belum-Temengor to look for the magnificent creatures, engaging the local indigenous community to be involved in the surveys.
Large flocks of Plain-pouched Hornbills are observed flying across the Belum-Temengor skyline between July and November every year. In fact, in August 2004, about 1,000 Plain-pouched Hornbills have been sighted on a single sighting.
In August and September, the season for the Plain-pouched Hornbill, thousands of these birds flock in Temengor, perhaps in search of food. The reasons why they migrate here during certain times of the year are uncertain yet, which is the main reason for this programme – to answer the many unanswered questions as to why these birds are here.
Here volunteers help conduct the important daily flight census and be a part of a national conservation effort, aiding our staff and experienced members in collecting data. Hornbill census is conducted twice a day, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon. This flight census will offer valuable information on population numbers which in turn will be used to advocate for the protection of Belum-Temengor, especially in addressing the logging threats.
It is hoped that the project will contribute towards understanding the ecology and biology of the globally threatened and near-threatened hornbills. Through this, it is hoped that the knowledge gained through the project will help to improve protection for the hornbills and its habitat.
Click here for the periodic updates on the programme.
World Wide Views on Climate and Energy is a global citizen consultation, providing unique information about how far citizens around the world are willing to go, in order to deal with climate change and to bring forward an energy transition.
Citizens were selected to reflect the demographic diversity in their countries or regions (at least 100 per country or region) attended a daylong meeting in their respective countries, starting at dawn in the Pacific, and continuing until dusk in the Americas. The ambition is to involve 10,000 citizens in 100 countries. All citizens will receive information about pros, cons and views on different climate and energy policies, targets and measures (both in advance and on that day) and all meetings will follow the same agenda and guidelines in order to make the results comparable.
Citizens have expressed their views on an identical set of questions, designed to reflect policy controversies at the COP negotiations and political discussions about climate and energy in general. The results are updated at The Climate Change and Energy website, allowing for easy exploration and comparisons of results; one country with another, developed countries with developing, etc.
MNS was privileged to speer head this international effort together with our local partners, MENGO, Embassy of France in Malaysia, Petaling Jaya District Council (MBPJ), EcoKnights and Malaysian Climate Change Group (MCCG).
44 Malaysian citizens participated and casted their votes to all the global issues raised and 10 facilitators and volunteers helped with the coordination.
Updates from other countries including Malaysia will be updated constantly at http://climateandenergy.wwviews.org/results/
The 1st official press conference was held on 10th June 2015 at 15.15 (GMT+2) at United Nations. The first round of results can be downloaded below or can be viewed here.
Documents ready for download:
- First round of results collected
- Seminar programme held in Malaysia
For more information, please call Mr. Balu Perumal, Head of Conservation at 03-22879422 or email hod.conservation@mns.org.my