Ecologist Dzaeman Dzulkifli describes how he taps on artificial intelligence and satellite imagery, as well as on-the-ground help from Malaysia's Orang Asli community to help protect and rebuild the nation's natural gardens
Forests play a vital role in stabilising the world’s climate. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, about 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide—or one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels—is absorbed by forests every year.
Recent data from the Rainforest Foundation Norway, however, revealed that humans have stripped the planet of two-thirds of its original tropical rainforest. Furthermore, only 36 percent of about 14.5 million square kilometres of tropical rainforest that once covered Earth’s surface remains intact.
In Malaysia, more than half of the country is forested, with an estimated 18.2 million hectares under forest cover. But since the start of the millennium, it has lost a fifth of its tree cover due to deforestation, according to Global Forest Watch.
Since 2015, however, Malaysia has seen a drop in the rate of forest loss—news that ecologist Dzaeman Dzulkifli cautions could be due to there being very little natural forest left to be cultivated for agriculture or other means.
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Dzaeman's affinity with nature was born from his exposure to the natural world from a young age. As a child, he would often explore the coastal forests and mangrove swamps around his home in the East Coast of Malaysia.
In 2012, he founded the non-government organisation, Tropical Rainforest Conservation & Research Centre (TRCRC), in hope of helping to preserve and restore the tropical rainforests around Malaysia.
Under his leadership as executive director, TRCRC has developed unique strategies that leverage both technology as well as the natural protectors of the forest, the Orang Asli (Malay for indigenous people), who are already working as forest rangers.
Under one of its initiatives, TRCRC trains the Orang Asli in the Belum Rainforest Reserve in the state of Perak to identify key tree species that can be used for forest restoration. They would also monitor, collect and grow them in nurseries in their villages. Dzaeman says such initiatives provide the Orang Asli with job opportunities in environments with which they are comfortable and where they call home.
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