What it takes to preserve our biodiversity

Currently, more forests are put side for logging than for conservation. The new biodiversity policy wants to raise protected lands to 20 of the total land area by 2025. Photo: Raymond Alfred/Borneo Conservation Trust

Our nature report card does not look good. In recent years, we’ve lost wild species – the Sumatran rhinoceros and the leatherback turtle are locally extinct as numbers are too small to be viable for breeding.

We’re also losing wild spaces – a cave in Kelantan which harbours rare plants and a gecko found nowhere else in the world, will be quarried for cement production while seagrass meadows off Johor which host dugongs and seahorses, are buried under newly reclaimed islands.