Land use changes in Perak catchment zone using remote sensing and GIS technique.

Efficiency use of land parcel in forest catchment area is becoming a major concern as the disparity between the demands by population growth to these resources is widening. Thus the competition over land use and water resources has sometime lead to conflict among different users. Societies pay a lot of attention to the problem of land use and environmental planning. From this view’s point an understanding of the hydrological zone in catchment area is necessary in the sense that it is important step toward management of water resources in this country. Information about changes and current land use in catchment areas is important for the management and planning. Remote sensing and GIS application nowadays are expand widely, specifically in dealing with several geography data and interpretation of broad area on earth surface. For instance, water catchments zone need a wide surface consist of steep slope to assemble precipitations before it is discharge to the reservoir through the tributaries cause by the gravity factor. Each of the tributaries which are discharge to the reservoir is include in the area of water catchments zone. The objective of this study are two folds: (i) to identify and delineate a catchments zone at Hutan Simpan Pondok Tanjung (HSPT) and (ii) to map land use changes using remote sensing data and GIS from 1989 to 1999 inside the catchment zone. Result showed that by using GIS, a catchment zone at HSPT Perak can be delineated, which was covering an area about 10,945.8 ha. Meanwhile, a total of 10 land use classes were mapped within the catchment zone and the changes of the land use area were analysed

Emerging patterns of genetic diversity in the critically endangered Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni)

Southeast Asia experiences some of the highest deforestation in the world. Loss of tropical forest typically leads to widespread habitat fragmentation, with detrimental effects on dispersal ability and gene flow—particularly for large carnivores. We conducted mtDNA and microsatellite analysis to assess—for the first time—contemporary patterns of genetic diversity in the Malayan tiger. We collected 295 suspected carnivore samples in Peninsular Malaysia, from which we identified 26 as originating from tiger using 16 polymorphic microsatellite loci, comprising 22 individual tigers. Despite limitations of the study, our findings suggest tiger subpopulations in the north of the peninsula maintain some genetic connectivity and migration between two putative geographic subpopulations in the Main Range and Greater Taman Negara, with negligible population segregation due to dispersal barriers such as road infrastructure. We identified consistently lower levels of genetic diversity in tigers in the Greater Taman Negara region compared to tigers in the Main Range and small but emerging differences in nuclear and mitochondrial genetic diversity. Our mtDNA haplotype and nuclear DNA analyses suggest the levels of genetic diversity in Malayan tigers may be amongst some of the lowest of the surviving tiger subspecies, though the study is limited both in scale and genomic loci. Our findings are consistent with an expected lag between the rapid decline of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia by over 95% in the last 70 years and observed differences in their levels of genetic diversity

WILDLIFE EX-SITU CONSERVATION : FORENSICS, BIOBANKING, ZOONOTIC DISEASES AND CAPTIVE BREEDING

Wildlife ex-situ conservation is a complete process of securing populations outside natural habitats. Tools like captive breeding, population genetics, artificial insemination and many others are key elements in this conservation practice. This book compiles all the advancements in ex-situ conservation via the application of forensics, captive breeding, molecular genetics, disease control and husbandry management by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) Peninsular Malaysia. A very precise and comprehensive explanation of each component is presented in this book. Those components include An Overview of ExSitu Conservation; Wildlife Forensics for Combating Wildlife Crime; Wildlife Biobanking; Wildlife Disease Surveillance; Wildlife Conservation; Wildlife Rescue, Rehabilitation and Release; Wildlife Husbandry Management and Way Forward of PERHILITAN’s ultimate goal in ex-situ conservation. All the information generated in this book will be valuable guidance for wildlife conservationists, policymakers, stakeholders and scholars. The authors of this book comprise a team with extensive experience and a wide range of skills, which make them highly qualified to publish the first-ever book on Ex-Situ Conservation in Peninsular Malaysia