Sabah Plant Red List Project needs experts, funds
Published on: Saturday, April 13, 2019
By: David Thien
Kota Kinabalu: Human beings are the greatest threat to the survival of endangered flora and fauna through poaching, habitat destruction and the effects of climate change.The Sabah Plant Red List Project requires more experts to progress successfully as a matter of urgency as the project has made some significant achievements that directly contribute to the plant species conservation programme in Sabah.ADVERTISEMENT
John B Sugau, the Curator of the Herbarium and Head of the Plant Diversity Programme of the Forest Research Centre, Sabah Forestry Department, said: “The Sabah Plant Red List Project is vital. Lack of trained staff and funding have been identified as key challenges faced by the project.”
Facing the funding challenges, for the short term, it is doable to place more effort in sourcing of local funds for employment of staff and maintenance of equipment, while for the long term, there is a need to initiate and prioritise long-term funding for at least five years, he said.
On manpower challenges, for the short term, the focus is on continuous collaboration with local institutions, John said.
Challenges include insufficient trained personnel at all levels. The current situation sees geo-referencing tasks relying on student interns or post-graduate students with coordinating work and input from experts relying on senior researchers from different sections.ADVERTISEMENT
As for long-term, the solution depends on employing permanent trained staff and designate a dedicated unit to handle conservation programme.
“Monitoring of threatened species needs full time and sufficient manpower. Measures to overcome these challenges need to be addressed,” he said when presenting his paper, “The Sabah Plant Red List Initiative: Achieving the goals of plant conservation strategies in Sabah”, at the Heart of Borneo 2019 Conference, here, recently.
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Two objectives of the Sabah Plant Red List Project are to procure and geo-reference vague points to produce valid and reliable species collection points, and to assess the conservation status of plants using the IUCN standard protocol.
IUCN stands for the International Union for Conservation of Nature which is an international organisation working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education.
A Red List refers to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List), founded in 1965, it has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species.
It uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies.
These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, with its strong scientific base, the IUCN Red List is recognised as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity.
A series of Regional Red List are produced by countries or organisations, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit.
John said in line with the National Policy on Biological Diversity 2016 to 2025, Malaysia Plant Conservation Strategy 2009, and the Sabah Biodiversity Strategy 2012 to 2022 goals, botanical surveys and compilation of species distribution data for targeted priority species have been carried out to produce regional threat status assessments using the IUCN Red List Assessment Criteria and Categories 3.1.
“This initiative was first mooted in 2009 and through this initiative, numerous achievements have been made, including the assignment of conservation status of more than 340 taxa; continuous capacity building efforts; dissemination of information through publication and presentations; and engagement in local and overseas collaborations.”
Regularly, IUCN updates the conservation status of species, subspecies, varieties, and even selected subpopulations on a global scale in order to highlight taxa threatened with extinction.
However, climate change, coastal/forest/other natural area conversion or degradation give impact on the existence of many species living in those areas.
“Some 26 per cent of the total list of prioritised species have been assessed,” he said.
“Some 100 Sabah endemic trees have been assessed. Another 240 more species will have to be assessed.”
Sabah is a mega biodiverse hotspot with 8,300 taxa of seed plants that need conservation to prevent the extinction of species, but 40 per cent of Sabah’s land mass has been converted to other land uses.
As a senior researcher, John said despite challenges, the initiative has moved forward. One of the highlights is the contribution to Sabah-wide High Conservation Value (HCV) initiative which, among others, identifies critically high conservation value plant habitats that require urgent conservation decisions on land use policy, especially in the opening of palm oil cultivation areas to strive to save threatened and endangered species.
John targeted this year to publish the Sabah Plant Red List Dipterocarpaceae as important information for sustainable forest management.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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