The approximately 300 (298, 95% CI: 152–581) elephants in the Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo are a priority sub-population for Borneo's total elephant population (2,040, 95% CI: 1,184–3,652). Habitat loss and human-elephant conflict are recognized as the major threats to Bornean elephant survival. In the Kinabatangan region, human settlements and agricultural development for oil palm drive an intense fragmentation process. Electric fences guard against elephant crop raiding but also remove access to suitable habitat patches. We conducted expert opinion-based least-cost analyses, to model the quantity and configuration of available suitable elephant habitat in the Lower Kinabatangan, and called this the Elephant Habitat Linkage. At 184 km2, our estimate of available habitat is 54% smaller than the estimate used in the State's Elephant Action Plan for the Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (400 km2). During high flood levels, available habitat is reduced to only 61 km2. As a consequence, short-term elephant densities are likely to surge during floods to 4.83 km−2 (95% CI: 2.46–9.41), among the highest estimated for forest-dwelling elephants in Asia or Africa. During severe floods, the configuration of remaining elephant habitat and the surge in elephant density may put two villages at elevated risk of human-elephant conflict. Lower Kinabatangan elephants are vulnerable to the natural disturbance regime of the river due to their limited dispersal options. Twenty bottlenecks less than one km wide throughout the Elephant Habitat Linkage, have the potential to further reduce access to suitable habitat. Rebuilding landscape connectivity to isolated habitat patches and to the North Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (less than 35 km inland) are conservation priorities that would increase the quantity of available habitat, and may work as a mechanism to allow population release, lower elephant density, reduce human-elephant conflict, and enable genetic mixing.

/pdf/quantity-and-configuration-of-available-elephant-habitat-and-55ucv9wf0u.pdf

Quantity and Configuration of Available Elephant Habitat and Related Conservation Concerns in the Lower Kinabatangan Floodplain of Sabah, Malaysia

Oil palm (Elaeis Guineensis) is considered to be one of the most valuable crops in Malaysia, helping to revolutionize its economic and agricultural scenario. Unfortunately, the developing oil palm industries in Malaysia have led to significant waste disposal concerns because of the accumulation of large quantities of oil palm waste. During the process of converting fresh fruit bunches (FFB) into crude palm oils (CPO), various types of oil palm waste are generated including oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF), empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm pressed fibers (PPF), palm kernel shells (PKS), and palm oil mill effluents (POME). Waste produced by the oil palm industry is still economically viable because it can be used in various ways since it is a promising material for the generation of renewable energy, as well as a source of chemical compounds, fertilizers, and biomaterials. The study concentrates on Boustead Plantation Berhad, one of Malaysia's most experienced and developed upstream oil palm plantation businesses. The production of oil palm waste is abundant since oil palm plantations and oil palm mills are scattered throughout Malaysia, with the company controlling 48 oil palm plantations and 10 palm oil mills. The goal of this study was to recognize the potential for oil palm waste to provide information on its potential for further use. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out innovative studies to increase the added value of oil palm, reduce waste, and make the oil palm industry more competitive.

The potential of biomass waste in Malaysian palm oil industry: a case study of Boustead Plantation Berhad

There have been many innovations in mill technologies, oil palm agronomy and pest management over past decades that are increasingly meeting the certification criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). In addition, because oil palm plantations may be functionally analogous to forests, and remain undisturbed for several decades, they can provide some essential ecosystem services to local/national stakeholders in terms of direct use-values (products, economics) and indirect use-values (carbon sequestration, biodegradation, hydrology); though the economic value of indirect services, such as maintenance of water quality, have not been recognized as national assets. On the other hand, option values (gene pools) and existence values (biodiversity) for oil palm plantations are low and loss of these values is contentious when natural systems are converted. Negative perceptions of oil palm being ‘eco-friendly’ also reflect the extent to which forest and peatland conversion to oil palm have resulted in off-site effects such as carbon mobilization, damage to river systems from sedimentation and loss of biodiversity. It is concluded that the industry could improve its image by adopting mitigation measures, including better landscape design and documentation of the areas under development, and by improving the visibility that some sectors of the industry are making to address these environmental issues.

Eco-friendly approaches to sustainable palm oil production

A study on water quality and aquatic insects has been conducted at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah, 
Malaysia. The quality of water surface and aquatic insects’ composition were studied in streams near to oil palm plantation 
(OP), secondary forest (SF) and oxbow lake (OB). The study also aims to identify the seasonal variation in the aquatic 
insects’ composition during the weak La Nina event. A total of 135 water samples and 1678 aquatic insect individuals 
(four orders and 14 families) were collected during fieldwork campaign that spanned over the inter-monsoonal period, 
wet and dry seasons between October 2004 and June 2005. OP has the highest abundance of aquatic insects particularly 
during the dry season. Biological indices showed that all stations were in moderate water category. The water quality 
index (WQI) was calculated and indicated that the quality of the river categorised into Class II. Discriminant analysis 
(DA) was employed to classify the independent variables into mutually-exclusive groups. Suspended sediment (SS) and 
chemical oxygen demand (COD) were high during the wet season. Suspended sediment was high in oxbow lake and could 
be a strong reason behind low abundance of aquatic insects. Precipitation anomalies were found to affect seasonal 
variations of water quality and aquatic insects at the Lower Kinabatangan River.

http://www.ukm.my/jsm/pdf_files/SM-PDF-44-4-2015/09%20Sahana%20Harun.pdf

Water quality and aquatic insects study at the Lower Kinabatangan River Catchment, Sabah: in response to weak La Niña event.

Floodplain forests are unique ecosystems that are located alongside rivers and streams. These systems derive their characteristics from periodic inundations. The extent, structure, and diversity of floodplain forests have been strongly modified by human pressures acting at the catchment, reach, and local scales. Even though many floodplains in Europe are characterised by natural forestation that began after the Second World War due to widespread changes in land-use practices, most European floodplain forests have disappeared. Since the 1970s, the scientific community and land managers have recognised the ecological, economic, and social values of floodplain forest. These forests are very valuable because of their high potential in terms of wood production, protection of water quality, flood control, recreation, and improvement of the landscape. In addition, they are natural areas with a high biological diversity and ecological specificity due to the influence of water on habitat conditions. Riparian areas are important for fish, amphibians, and mammals (e.g., beavers). Additionally, the forests provide breeding habitat for birds, and are navigational aids and stopover sites for migrating species (e.g., the songbirds in the North Platte River). The need to preserve and restore them is now widely recognised. Forest ecosystems that are under hydrological control evolved their original ecological processes in response to their proximity to and the dynamics of the river. Thus, the periodic water supply is a key process characterising floodplain forests. The land–water interfaces are important areas for biological exchanges, water supply and content, soil moisture, organic matter evolution, seed dispersal, and nutrient cycling. Floodplain forests are part of 44 Restoring Floodplain Forests

Restoring Floodplain Forests

Since the commencement of large scale planting of oil palm, Malaysia has experienced rapid growth of the industry in terms of planted area and production. In year 2000, the country produced 10.84million tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO) from a total planted area of about 3.376 million ha. As the national average production has been projected to exceed 15 million tonnes for the period 2016-2020, continued expansion in planted area can be expected. Since most of the suitable agricultural land have already been utilised, new areas for expansion are likely to be in less ideal environments such as steep terrain, shallow soils and deep peat which would be very challenging within the context of sustainable development. There is concern that oil palm planting could result in the clearing of many remaining lowland forests, many of which are considered important for conservation. A case in point is the Lower Kinabatangan floodplains in Sabah where most of the logged over forest areas have been replaced by oil palm. While oil palm cultivation has brought economic prosperity to the region, it is necessary to balance development with the need to preserve the unique ecosystem of the floodplains, bearing in mind that the State Government has designated 27, 000 ha of the area as a wildlife sanctuary. The range of biodiversity in the Lower Kinabatangan has also attracted the development of a ecotourism industry. As divergent interests and activities of the logging industry, oil palm plantations and ecotourism could threaten the integrity of the wildlife sanctuary, the Sabah Wildlife Dept and WWF Malaysia formed Partners for Wetlands in 1998 to encourage stakeholders to work as partners in solving problems and ensuring wise use of the natural resources in the floodplains. Various activities have been undertaken to address problems such as flooding and human-wildlife conflicts. In the effort to gain greater commitment and participation from stakeholders towards achieving a common vision, a Forum on “Making Land Use Sustainable in the Lower Kinabatangan Floodplains was held in Kota Kinabalu in April, 2001. A structured problem solving was adopted for analysis of the current problems with the view to identify underlying root causes, after which an action plan would be developed and implemented by various stakeholders. Experience in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplains has given an insight on what could happen if economic development from upstream to downstream did not give adequate consideration to the need for conservation and protection of the environment.

/pdf/balancing-the-need-for-sustainable-oil-palm-development-and-58eeoahc82.pdf

Balancing the Need for Sustainable Oil Palm Development and Conservation : The Lower Kinabatangan Floodplains Experience

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Choon Yee

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Balancing the Need for Sustainable Oil Palm Development and Conservation : The Lower Kinabatangan Floodplains Experience