No abstract

Malaysia has approximately 15,000 species of vascular plants. Its flora is distributed between two major geographical regions; Peninsular Malaysia on mainland Asia and the states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Peninsular Malaysia has over 8,300 plant species and Sabah and Sarawak in a recent estimate have about 12,000 species. Total species endemism for Peninsular Malaysia is about 30%; its tree endemism is 26.3%. For Sabah and Sarawak, the endemism level is higher, recently revised figures gave a tree species endemism of 42.1%. Malaysia has recently published its national strategy for plant conservation, which now forms the basis of conservation activities for the country. Since 2004, we have been running a project entitled "Conservation Monitoring of Rare and Threatened Plants of Peninsular Malaysia", in which conservation status assessment is scored for a number of families. Results of the assessment of 458 taxa included 46.1% in some threat category. Detailed conservation studies are in progress for 33 species of threatened plants. Initial work on these species include spatial distribution studies at regional level based on herbarium records, and at a more local level, population studies to determine demography of populations. Regular phenological observations were also made for many of the species.

Malaysia is a megadiverse country and listed as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Land use changes and deforestation have led to the threat of, and extinction of plant species. In order to mitigate loss in population numbers, and to prevent species extinction events, Important Plant Areas (IPA) for Malaysia shall be identified. The identification of IPA is important to ensure that key natural areas are adequately protected and managed to preserve the species and its habitats. Currently, there are 1771 IPA identified globally and only seven tropical countries are actively involved excluding Malaysia. Inventory and biodiversity research are actively conducted in Malaysia, however, the initiative to identify IPA is still in its infancy. The first attempt for IPA identification was in the state of Terengganu by using herbarium database through scoring technique. In this paper, we discussed methods and criteria used in IPA identification globally. We also deliberated current IPA development in Terengganu and challenges such as collections biases and the need for a robust scoring technique to reduce judgement uncertainty. We suggested GIS based multi-criteria decision making, analytical hierarchy process and species distribution for Malaysian IPA. These strategies were considered to be effective tools in providing decision support for spatial planning aimed at plant conservation in Malaysia.