Bringing Back Our Rare Animals: Lessons for recovery in Malaysia

What does it take to conserve fragmented and declining populations of globally threatened large mammals?

In Southeast Asia, there is no longer a single area with 500 individuals of any large terrestrial mammal species with an optimum demography and unrestricted reproductive opportunities.

When conserving the charismatic native species of Malaysia such as orangutan, wild cattle and Malayan tigers, we need to go beyond reactive, short-term interventions - the importance of scale, in time and space is now critical. 

This event will showcase the challenges of conserving large mammals in Asia and highlight the threats of inadequate fertility and demography, insufficient food productivity to recover remnant clusters, and the misdirected use of rare large animals as representatives to assert conservation hope. Speakers will discuss the importance of local ecological knowledge and how mobilising small groups of passionate people to implement conservation programmes can help recover populations. Attendees will also hear about what positive conservation action can look like, and what lessons can be learned from the sharp decline of the Sumatran rhino.

Speakers

Dr John Payne has spent 50 years as a practicing wildlife biologist in Malaysia and Indonesia, and during this time has witnessed the risks that come with using large charismatic animals such as the Malaysian rhino as representatives of conservation success. As the Executive Director of BORA, a small, specialist Malaysian wildlife management NGO, John witnessed the deaths of the last two Malaysian rhinos whilst they were under BORA care in 2019. John is the author of The Hairy Rhinoceros: History, Ecology and Some Lessons for Management of the Last Megafauna.

Professor Samuel Turvey is a researcher at the Institute of Zoology, whose work focuses on using evidence-based conservation to guide recovery of some of the world’s most threatened species. Samuel's work also investigates how different types of data can contribute unique insights for conservation – especially for species that are so rare they cannot be studied easily with standard ecological techniques. This research addresses biodiversity conservation in China and on fragile island ecosystems, and aims to provide baselines for conserving ‘neglected’ threatened species such as solenodons, hutias and giant salamanders.

This event will be chaired by Dr Andrew Terry, Director of Conservation and Policy, ZSL.

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