Integrating Remotely Sensed and Terristrial Data
for Environmental Conservation Management in Tasek Bera, Pahang, Malaysia
Richard F. Dorall
Associate Professor, Department of Geography,
University of Malaya, University of Malaya,
50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
E-mail:f3rich@umcd.um.edu.my
Peter Sinniah
Geographical Information Systems Data Management Officer,
Tasek Bera project,
Wetlands International Asia
Institute for Post Graduate Studies and Research (IPSR),
University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
E-mail:speter@tm.net.my
Introduction
Malaysia became a contracting party to the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl habitat, better know as the Ramsar Convention, in November 1994. The importance Malaysia gives to Wetland conservation and management for sustainable development was emphasized during the International Conference on Wetlands and Development held in Kuala Lumpur in October 1995 when, in the Opening Speech delivered by the Malaysian Prime Minister, YAB Dato Seri' Dr Mahathir Mohamad, acknowledged that,
"… wetlands and their resources play a critical role in supporting the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Wetlands not only provide a wide range of valuable products to society, including fish, fodder and timber, but also perform a number of natural biophysical functions such as flow regulation and groundwater recharge. They are therefore relevant for research and understanding to ensure that their contributions to the development of the ecosystems are maintained"
(Anon. 1996).
The Prime Minister admitted in this speech that " As we meet today, these life -sustaining systems remain under threat. Many wetlands… have been destroyed or degraded through over-exploitation or environmentally unsound development." During the conference, YAB Tan Sri Hj Mohd Khalil bin Yaakob, the Chief Minister of the State of Pahang, announced that his state's Executive Council had agreed to gazette Tasek Bera and its surrounding area of some 26,000 hectares as a reserve for conservation purposes under the Ramsar convention, while an additional 27,500 hectares had been identified as a buffer zone (Anon. 1996a). With financial support from the government of Denmark through the funding agency DANCED, the government of the State of Pahang subsequently contracted Wetlands International Asia-Pacific to implement a three year cooperative project which aims to protect and enhance the biodiversity of Tasek Bera and its catchment area, in order to meets its responsibilities under the Ramsar conventions, and to ensure the long term future, and sustainable development of this wetland site of international importance.
The Project Area:
Tasek Bera is Peninsular Malaysia's largest natural lake system, and is located in southwest Pahang. It is a lowland (mostly under 80 meters above sea level) dendritic alluvial peat swamp ecosystem measuring some 34km by 35 km, with a wtlands area of 6,150 hectares in a catchment estimated at 61,383 hectares. The lake system drains northwards through the Sungei Bera into the Sungei Phanag. Reversed water flow occurs during the Northeast monsoon (September -January), resulting in fluctuations in water level in the system of between 1 through 5 meters. The system comprises three major habitat types, as reported in the Malaysian Wetland Directory (Anon. 1987): the open water region fringed by submerged Utricularia weeds (approximately 1 per cent of the swamp area); emergent Pandanus and Lepironia reed beds in the littoral zone (32 per cent); and Eugenia swamp forest stands (67 per cent). The catchment was originally lowland dipterocarp forest, but this has over the past two decades been largely replaced with oil palm and rubber plantations developed by the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA).
The site was studied in detail through the International Biological Programme in the 1970s which some 95 species of fish, 200 bird species, large mammals such as elephant (Elephas maximus), tapir (Tapirus indicus), tiger (Panthera tigris) and gaur (Bos gaurus), virtually all the amphibians and reptiles of Malaysian tropical swamps, including the endangered Malayan False Gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii). Tasek Bera is ranked as a wetland site of national and international importance because it is only one of two major natural fresh-water wetlands in Peninsular, and plays an important natural function as a major lake river basin. It supports a diverse biological community unique to Malaysia, "and possibly represented nowhere else in the world" (Anon. 1987). The Malaysian Wetland Directory noted the following threats facing Tasek Bera: shifting cultivation (by indigenous native peoples, the Semelai); possible pollution from tributaries in the system affected by developments taking place upstream; logging operations and associated road construction which alter local drainage patterns and increase siltation in river tributaries which lead to the destruction of the watershed.
