Traffic

An ambitious Malaysian Tiger Action Plan aims to increase wild Tigers in Peninsular Malaysia to 1,000 animals by 2020. Click photo to enlarge  © Elizabeth Kemf / WWF-Canon  Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, 23 December 2008—Conservation groups today welcomed the release of the much-anticipated National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia, calling the Plan an important milestone in Tiger conservation in the region.

The Plan aims to have 1,000 wild Tigers surviving on wild prey in the Central Forest Spine by 2020, through securing key forests areas in landscapes connected with corridors, providing long-term on-the-ground protection of Tigers and their prey, and promoting ecologically sound land-use practices. It prioritizes three core areas; the Belum-Temengor Complex, the Greater Taman Negara Complex and the Endau-Rompin Complex.

Described in 2005, the Laotian Rock Rat Laonastes aenigmamus was first encountered by scientists on sale at an outdoor food market in Lao PDR Click photo to enlarge © David RedfieldHa Noi, Viet Nam, 17 December 2008—Over one thousand new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia since 1997, says a new report by WWF.

Among the most incredible finds documented in First Contact in the Greater Mekong are the Lao Rock Rat, thought to have gone extinct 11 million years ago but discovered in a Lao food market; the hot-pink “dragon millipede” that produces cyanide in self-defense; the world’s largest huntsman spider, which has a leg span of over 30 centimeters; and a new species of purple banana from Southern China.

All told, over 500 plants, 250 fish, 80 frogs, 40 lizards, and 20 snakes, as well as 15 mammals, 4 birds, 4 turtles, 2 salamanders and a toad, were found throughout the six countries of the Greater Mekong region, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.