Conservation

The Pahang and Johore State Governments have agreed to declare the 92,000 hectare Endau-Rompin Forest as a State Park. It had been proposed as a National Park in 1975, but, as usual, this did not prevent logging in the core area in 1977. This was halted after considerable national protest, but logging still occurs around the fringes and between S. Kinchin and S. Kemapan. The area is not only important for its animals (largest breeding population of Sumatran rhinoceros), but also has an outstanding botanical significance (see also articles on the Malaysian Heritage and Scientific Expedition to the area by e.g. B.H. and R. KIEW). It is one of the sites proposed for inclusion in the forthcoming ‘Centres of plant Diversity Book’. The predominant vegetation is lowland mixed Dipterocarp forest of a type that contains many Bornean elements and is, therefore, rather different from the forests elsewhere in Peninsular Malaysia. During the expedition many rare and/or endemic plants were met, e.g. the dwarf banana Musa gracilis, and several undescribed ones in Codonoboea, Didissandra, Didymocarpus, Dischidia, Garcinia, Hoya, Livistona, Loxocarpus, and Phyllagathis. (After Threatened Pl. Newsl. 19, 1988, 8, map).