Ecowatch: Lessons from Rwanda

Meet Mohuza, ‘the comforter’. He has a name and a story because someone decided he was worth knowing and protecting. — DR JEMILAH MAHMOOD

THE morning fog had not yet lifted when I began the climb to Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. My lungs burned. My legs protested against every mud-slicked root and hidden rock on the volcanic slopes of the Virunga Massif.

After four hours, I heard a rustle in the undergrowth. Then a silverback mountain gorilla emerged from the mist, enormous and indifferent, while his family moved quietly around him. I sat within metres of them for one hour, the maximum allowed by Rwanda’s strict protocols, and could not find a single word.

I have been writing about planetary health for almost five years. I have swum over fields of bleached coral in waters off Sabah. I have walked through ghost forests in Pahang where the canopy once closed overhead like a cathedral. I have sat with Orang Asli elders in Rompin, Pahang, who describe, with heartbreaking precision, how their river changed – the fish that vanished first, then the water itself.

I thought I had made my peace with grief. Rwanda broke it open again.

What struck me most forcefully on that misty mountain, staring into eyes that share 98.4% of our DNA, was this: Rwanda, a country of just 26,000sq km that endured genocide only 30 years ago, has built a biodiversity protection framework that shames the rest of us.

Malaysia, meanwhile, holds the third most biodiverse landscape on Earth yet still debates whether community forestry rights are “administratively convenient”.

The science tells us exactly how urgent this moment is. The Planetary Boundaries Framework, developed by Stockholm Resilience Centre researchers, identifies nine planetary processes that must remain within certain thresholds. We have already breached seven.

One of the most severely violated is biosphere integrity, the stability of the living systems that sustain life. Our actions mean that the Amazon jungle could collapse from carbon sink to carbon source. Boreal forests could die back across vast regions. Monsoon systems that billions depend upon could destabilise. Once these systems have tipped, recovery is very difficult if not impossible.

Malaysia sits near several of these tipping points. The forests of Borneo, the peatlands of the peninsula, and the coral triangle of the Sulu Sea are not scenic backdrops. They are stabilisers of climate, rainfall patterns, and marine productivity. If they degrade, the consequences will ripple through food systems, fisheries, water supplies, and livelihoods across the region.

This is where Rwanda offers a powerful mirror. The country’s conservation success is not only scientific. It is political and moral. Rwanda recognised that protecting forests cannot mean excluding the communities who have lived beside them for generations. Instead, it integrates those communities directly into conservation.

Ten per cent of national park tourism revenue is distributed directly to communities to fund schools, clinics, and infrastructure. Another 5% is set aside to compensate farmers if wildlife damages crops. Former poachers are retrained as trackers and rangers.

The forest is not managed despite the community – it is managed through them. The results are clear. Mountain gorilla numbers, once close to extinction, are now rising; the only great ape population in the world where numbers are increasing.

Malaysia has the foundations to achieve something similar. The country is home to 18 recognised indigenous groups. For centuries these communities have practised sophisticated, ecologically-calibrated forest stewardship.

The Penan of Sarawak navigated the forests of Borneo through carefully structured resource tenure systems, seasonal rotations, and shared knowledge networks. The Temiar of Kelantan and Perak maintain agroforestry landscapes that support remarkable biodiversity compared with surrounding monoculture land. These are sophisticated ecological management systems.

Yet Malaysian law treats these communities as obstacles to development rather than partners in conservation. Native Customary Rights claims frequently remain caught in legal disputes for decades.

Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (Orang Asli Development Depart-ment), the agency responsible for Orang Asli affairs, still operates under a framework that was designed for assimilation rather than self-determination.

The landmark Sagong Tasi decision in 2002 affirmed indigenous land rights but administrative workarounds have steadily weakened its impact.

In Sarawak, the collision between plantation expansion, logging concessions, and native customary land rights has produced years of legal battles that exhaust the very communities they most harm.

Malaysia’s National Policy on Biological Diversity 2016-2025 contains ambitious language about community participation and ecosystem-based management. But protected areas still fall short of the 30% coverage target set by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Enforcement capacity remains chronically limited. Communities closest to the forests remain largely excluded from the institutions that determine how those forests are managed.

A Malaysian version of Rwanda’s model would mean recognising free, prior, and informed consent for indigenous communities in all decisions affecting their territories as a veto-bearing right. It would mean sharing revenues from tourism, carbon credits, and biodiversity financing with these communities; establishing co-management boards where indigenous representatives hold decision-making power; and formally recognising traditional ecological knowledge within environmental impact assessments just as engineering and technical reports are recognised.

None of this is radical or new. Studies show that indigenous-managed territories often have higher biodiversity, lower deforestation rates, and better long-term resilience than state-managed protected areas with equivalent legal status. Protecting ecosystems and empowering indigenous communities are not separate goals. They are the same strategy.

I left Rwanda carrying something I cannot quite name. It was not optimism exactly. The global biodiversity crisis is too severe for that. But it was a reminder that political will can exist. It can emerge even in places that have faced profound national trauma. Rwanda chose to build a conservation system rooted in partnership with local communities. That choice is now protecting one of the world’s most iconic species.

The silverback I sat with has a name: Mohuza, meaning “the comforter” in the Kinyarwandan language. The rangers know which family he leads, which infants were born this season, which rival males challenge his territory. He is known because someone decided he was worth knowing. Worth protecting. Worth building an entire system of care around.

Malaysia’s forests are full of creatures equally extraordinary, equally irreplaceable. They are equally tied to the health of this planet and to the wellbeing of the communities who live alongside them.

As I left the forest that day, I waved Mohuza farewell and thanked him.

The real question facing us is not whether Malaysia can afford to protect what remains. It is whether the country has finally understood that it cannot afford not to, and whether it is ready to work with the communities who have always known how.