Malaysia

What does it take? The role of incentives in forest plantation development in Asia and the Pacific

Background

The Asia-Pacific region has a significant amount of diverse forest cover. While many countries have experience deforestation, the remaining forests are still valued for their ecosystem services and timber products. To protect these two benefits, severa government have promoted forest plantations as a forest management strategy. This reports  assess the impact of incentives on forest plantation development.

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Restoration of native forests from Japan to Malaysia

Background

This paper describes the "Miyawaki method" to afforestation and its application in an urban setting in Malaysia. This method, which relies on a densley planted mix of seedling species from seeds collected in neighboring forests, has been utilized throughout Japan and is gaining momentum in new tropical locations as well.

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Mangrove restoration without planting

Background

Mangrove planting is the most common method of restoring mangrove forests. However, this approach is not often successful, especially when the causes of mangrove degradation were not removed prior to planting new seedlings or propagules. A successful mangrove restoration project may not necessarily include a planting phase. When the stressors are removed and suitable environmental conditions are present, natural regeneration processes could recover mangroves from degradation.

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Forest Fragmentation and its Correlation to Human Land Use Change in the State of Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia

Background

This paper uses a simple fragmentation index comprising three landscape metrics-  non-forest area, forest edge bordered by human land use, and patch size coefficient of variation- to study changes in forest fragmentation in the state of Selangor, in peninsular Malaysia between 1966, 1981 and 1995.

Research Goals & Methods

The study utilized  digitized land use maps developed by the Soil Management Division of the Department of Agriculture, Malaysia, to study changes in land use over time.

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Degraded Lands Worth Protecting: the Biological Importance of Southeast Asia's Repeatedly Logged Forests.

Background

The study examines the impacts of second logging cycles on biodiversity by comparing species richness, species composition and population-level responses of birds and dung beetle species across unlogged forest, first rotation forest, and second rotation forest in Sabah, Malaysia.

Research Goals & Methods

The authors sample 18 sites, 6 for each forest type, over a two year period. They use point count and mist net censuses for bird species and pitfall traps to count dung beetles.

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Afforestation and Reforestation Projects in South and South-East Asia Under the Clean Development Mechanism: Trends and Development Opportunities

background

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created as part of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol to assist countries in achieving both development and sustainability. Afforestation and reforestation (AR) projects are a part of the CDM protocal, but can be challenging to implement and measure.

research goals & methods

This study reports on survey results regarding CDM-AR projects. Surveys were conducted in South and South-east Asia of both (i) experts and (ii) developers, investors, and consultants.

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Disturbance, Recovery and Resilience in Tropical Forests: A Focus on the Coastal Peat Swamp Forests of Malaysian Borneo

Background

This thesis represents four years of work investigating the long-term ecological changes that have occurred in the coastal peat swamp forests of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo over the Late Holocene.

Research Goals & Methods

Three peat cores were extracted from sites along the coast of northern Borneo and fossil pollen and charcoal analysis performed on them in order to look at how vegetation has changed in the past, and what factors may have caused disturbances to the baseline forest communities

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The Value of Rehabilitating Logged Rainforest for Birds

Background

This study examines a lowland, dry dipterocarp forest in Sabah, Malaysia that had been selectively logged in 1988-89. One area was rehabilitated (enrichment planting and liberation cutting of vines, bamboos, and noncommercial species). This area was surrounded by a naturally reforesting area. The authors suggest that rehabilitation of selectively logged forests is a more effective carbon sink than plantations.

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Lessons Learnt from WWF’s Worldwide Field Initiatives Aiming at Restoring Forest Landscapes

background

This document provides a series of case studies about forest landscape restoration projects from across the WWF network. The authors provide overall lessons as well as country-specific lessons. The authors summarize lessons learned across programs for the different stages of restoration programs.

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Can Legality Verification Rescue Global Forest Governance? Analyzing the Potential of Public and Private Policy Intersection to Ameliorate Forest Challenges in Southeast Asia

background

This review paper looks at the emergence of legality verification of forest timber products and its usefulness in addressing forest degradation. Legality verification, in the context of timber imports as discussed in this paper, is the process of supply chain tracking to ensure that all timber is legally harvested.

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