Wednesday, October 14, 2015

National parks in Sarawak to benefit from biodiversity workshop


MULU: National parks in Sarawak will benefit from a training workshop which was jointly organised by Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) of Japan; Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Malaysia (NRE); and Sarawak Forestry.

The 11-day event which began in Mulu National Park on Monday was conducted under topics like Biodiversity Assessment Methodologies, Data Gathering and Communication, and Education and Public Awareness for Park Management Staff.

It is funded by Asean Integration Fund (JAIF) and East and Southeast Asia Biodiversity Information Initiative (ESABII) and Ministry of Environment-Japan (MoE-J) as a continuing partnership to strengthen taxonomy in Asean with training that focused on lowland forest trees of Sarawak.

Sarawak Forestry, in a statement yesterday, said the event had gathered 25 protected area managers, forest rangers and staff of protected areas and Asean Heritage Parks (AHP), and other government environment agencies from eight Asean member states.

It was an opportunity for learning, discussion, practical field applications and exercises, and laboratory work on topics such as geographic evolution and elevation patterns of vegetation in Southeast Asia; assessment methods, data gathering, analysis and interpretation; GIS as a tool for biodiversity analysis; ecosystem services of tropical and temperate forests; and the taxonomy of Dipterocarpaceae and Sapotaceae.

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