Forest biodiversity conservation and management: development of ecological monitoring system

Within the biological diversity richness of Malaysia`s tropical forests, peat swamp forest (PSF) is the most important of Malaysia`s wetland types which accounts approximately 75% of the area. As of 2006, the country possesses 1.45 million hectares of remaining PSF80% of which is found in Sarawak with some nearly contiguous area (200,000ha) found in South-East Pahang and 75,000ha scattered in Selangor. Sabah has the smallest PSF compared to the other sites but remains biologically significant. The richness and importance of biodiversity found at the three PSF sites : South-East Pahang Peat Swamp Forest (SEPPSF)Klias Peninsular, Sabah and Loagan Bunut National Park (LBNP), Sarawak will be illustrated in terms of its uniqueness, endemicity and vulnerability, and the initiative taken to promote conservation and sustainability by the associated ecosystems. An integrated database management system (IDMS) was developed for respective sites with the main purpose of establishing a system to cater easy storage and retrieval of the information and support the management prescriptions including ecological monitoring agreed under the management plan. The system includes three major components namely Biophysical and Socioeconomic (IBSE) database, Forest Inventory and Biodiversity Assessment (FIBA) database and GIS database with a mapping capability. Basically both IBSE and FIBA contain information in textual database. IBSE stores data on current biophysical, environmental and socio-economic conditions of the project areas. FIBA, on the other hand stores data gathered from the sample plots and generated maps. An ecological monitoring system (EMS) is being developed to establish a realistic and institutionalised monitoring program and procedures for its implementation. It ensures the inclusion of appropriate data fields to allow monitoring function including specific reporting functions for the IDMS. The EMS was designed as a tool regularly assess the trend of certain parameters of biodiversity towards sustainability. Together with the management plan, the monitoring system is needed to compulsory requirement within the nine principles of the Malaysian Criteria and Indicators for Forest Management Certification [MCandI (2002)]. A framework of the standard operating procedures (SOP) was then developed focusing on the ecological/landscape, hydrological, biodiversity and socio-economic indicators. The work involves an international biodiversity specialist and an expert panel which intensively reviews and validates the SOP through consultations with state authorities and field testing operations. The above initiative is supported by UNDP/GEF Peat Swamp Forests Project (MAL/99/G31) under the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment Malaysia.