Understanding Development Trends and Landscape Changes of Protected Areas in Peninsular Malaysia: A Much Needed Component of Sustainable Conservation Planning

Abstract

The establishment of protected areas in peninsular Malaysia was initiated during the British colonial period. The combination of political scenario and socioeconomic development has influenced the planning and management of protected areas in peninsular Malaysia. As a result, some of them did not receive much attention and have been exposed to various human land use activities such as agriculture, urbanization, and building highways, a concern particularly since the rapid land development for agriculture in the 1950s and the 1960s. However, from the 1980s to recent years, urbanization and other similar types of development are emerging to affect the sustainability of protected areas. Assessing landscape element change or simply landscape change of protected areas and their link to its development trends is an urgent need to identify the main priorities for protection and conservation. Therefore, this chapter presents the development trends of protected areas, followed by some analysis on landscape changes both inside and outside of protected areas in three temporal years: 1988, 1996, and 2005. The degree of their impact on ecosystem of the protected areas is also presented. The objective is to provide understanding of the linkages between the development trends and landscape changes and their impact on the ecosystems of the protected areas.