The Malaysian Rainforest
Major forest types in Malaysia are lowland dipterocarp forest, hill dipterocarp forest,upper hill dipterocarp forest, oak-laurel forest, montane ericaceous forest, peat swampforest and mangrove forest. In addition, there also smaller areas of freshwater swampforest, heath forest, forest on limestone and forest on quartz ridges.The forests in Malaysia are mostly dominated by trees from the
Dipterocarpaceae
family, hence the term ‘dipterocarp forests’. The dipterocarp forest occurs on dry land just above sea level to an altitude of about 900 metres.The term ‘dipterocarp’ specifically refers to the fact that most of the largest trees in thisforest belong to one plant family known as
Dipterocarpaceae
. It was so called becausetheir fruits have seeds with two wings (
di
= two;
ptero
= wing;
carp
= seed).This type of forest can be classified according to altitude into lowland dipterocarp forest(LDF), up to 300m above sea level, and hill dipterocarp forest (HDF) found in elevationof between 300m and 750m above sea level, and the upper dipterocarp forests, from750m to 1,200m above sea level. However in Sarawak both the lowland and hilldipterocap forests are known as mixed-dipterocarp forest (MDF).HDF, normally found in areas 500-700m above sea level, contains less undergrowth. It isa little poorer in wildlife compared to the LDF, but is the preferred habitat of birds andsmall mammals that are tree "specialists" such as the squirrels. The
Rafflesia
species,which have the largest flowers in the world, can be found in these forests. At present,LDF is a threatened habitat. There are very few areas of this forest type left outside of protected areas such as parks and wildlife reserves. While most of the country wascovered with lowland forest in the past, today the majority has been cleared for other landuses. The few remaining pockets are under threat.There are some pockets of lowland forests near urban centres such as the Sungai BulohReserve, Kanching Forest Reserve (part of which is the popular Templer's Park) andAmpang Forest Reserve outside Kuala Lumpur. These areas, however, are under intense pressure from development and these islands of natural lowland forests are shrinkingrapidly.Beautiful and relatively undisturbed LDF can be found at Taman Negara in Peninsular Malaysia, Lambir Hills National Park in Sarawak and at the Maliau Basin, Sepilok ForestReserve and Danum Valley in Sabah. But there is a real need to conserve the remainingareas of LDF in other parts of the country.
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