Introduction

Encompassed by Bukit Lagong, Forest Research Industry Malaysia (FRIM) is a 544.3

hectare area found 16 km northwest from metropolitan city of Kuala Lumpur. FRIM has
turned into a hotspot tourist for nature tourism, education and open air recreation activities
because of its rich biodiversity and picturesque beauty. 58 species (29%) from 16 families
out of There are 200 types of terrestrial mammals all over Malaysia were found and recorded
in FRIM. Economic value of biodiversity conservation must be acquired to manage and
conserve biodiversity as well as FRIM’s effort in using techniques to provide evidence to
support and formulate policies associated protection of biological resources. All these
acquired data will add to understanding FRIM's desire to become a World Heritage site by
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (Abdullah et. al.,
2015).

FRIM appreciates secure assurance in terms of law as it is a national heritage site in

Malaysia. Be that as it may, while the territory is generally huge in local terms, it is
moderately narrow in width; it is relatively powerless against any disturbances. Thus the
requirement for investigation emerged out. However all these could contrarily influence the
integrity of the recreation center and the one of a kind assets of the territory, particularly their
biodiversity, water generation, and scenic qualities. One of the biggest threats also includes
changes in landscape caused by various land uses, for example, horticulture, business
afforestation, and new settlement (Abdullah et. al., 2013).

Biodiversity as defined by Mutia (2009), is the assortment of all types of living

organisms on earth. This including the varieties of distinctive plants, creatures, smaller scale
living beings, as well the qualities they contain and the ecosystem they shape. When
conservation is incorporated in biodiversity, humans were able to identify its importance
towards living organisms on earth. Biodiversity should be conserved because of its
advantages for example, biological resources which are basic essentials to live our life on
earth. In any case, it also gives otherworldly advantages and additionally social advantage
(Wanjui, 2013).

In the early days biodiversity protection were mainly centered on the protection of
charismatic as well as rare species, but later expanded to incorporating the safeguarding of
natural habitats and terrific protected areas, for example national parks (Bugter et al. 2018).

Conservation of biodiversity comes in many ways. The most crucial backbone of

conservation of biodiversity is through several ways such as preserving specimens through
Herbarium and Insectarium, as well as developing new cell structures using plant tissue
culture techniques (Proença et al., 2017).

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Discussion

In the first part of the FRIM trip, we were given chance to go on nature walk at one of
the trail in FRIM which was the “Keruing Trail”. The guide has explained to us that the FRIM
was actually started as a tin-mining area and in order to fertilise the soil, legume trees were
first planted. Dialium indum (Velvet-tamarind tree) was one of the first trees that were planted
in FRIM. Legume tree-based cultivating frameworks sit at a crucial nexus of agroecological
maintainability. Legume tree-based have the ability to help microbial N2 fixation and therefore
can increase soil nitrogen (N) availability and subsequently, enhancing soil fertility, crop
yields, and support long-term stewardship of natural resources. (Rosenstock et. al., 2014).
This in turn made the soil in FRIM area more fertile thus, being able to make an urban man-
made forest park.

Figure 1: Keruing Trail accompanied by a guide

The walk is continued with introduction of several species of dipterocarp trees such
as Scorodocarpus borneensis and Dipterocarpus spp or more commonly known as Kulim
Tree and Keruing Tree respectively. The fruits of Scorodocarpus borneensis has been known
to be a great substitute for garlic as it has the same smell as a real garlic plant. Dipterocarp
trees are known to have outstanding timber qualities. They are mostly marketed
internationally as most dipterocarp trees can only be found in rainforests. Some examples of
dipterocarp trees that are commonly commercialized internationally as luan plywood and as
sawn timber are under names such as Philippines red mahogany, meranti and keruing.
(Corlett and Primack, 2005).

Figure 2: Scorodocarpus borneensis

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Also observed in the trail is Dryobalanops aromatica or commonly known as Crown of
Shyness. The Dryobalanops aromatica tree which is otherwise called Borneo camphor can
grow up to 65 meters high and has winged seeds that rotate amid their plummet. The seed of
the tree has also inspired the invention of biomimetic wind turbine in which the seed has The
Dryobalanops aromatica seed has five adaptable wings and its shape is a similarity to a
shuttlecock. The tree has a very unique form of leaves in which none of the leaves from each
trunk touches each other (Chu and Chong, 2017).

Figure 3: Dryobalanops aromatic

Forests are highly valued and appreciated for its numerous ecosystem services,
including timber production, climate regulation and recreation, as well for for biodiversity in its
own right (Mace et al. 2012). Conserving rainforest is an on-going effort to recover rainforest
and primary tropical forests which were once in perfect condition that have experienced
critical human effects which includes clear-cutting, overwhelming which result in partial
clearance, or significant levels of specific logging. Recovering forests can represent to
various kinds of unique land use and change with various potential qualities for biodiversity
preservation. Albeit such human-altered ecosystems mostly represent the dominant part of
remaining tropical woods, their capability to give habitat for conservation of rainforest
biodiversity is combative. While few arguments stated that the key preservation need is to
secure essential woods, others propose that recovering and secondary forests will turn out to
be progressively imperative as human populaces in tropical nations increases and primary
forest is changed over to horticultural land and after that will be abandoned to recover. An
effective proposal that was suggested for conservation is to offer a second chance to
conserve and sustain species biodiversity and wildlife of high conservation value (Whitworth
et al., 2016).

The program was continued with a talk by Ms Chooi Kim Phoon on conservation of
Rajah’s Brook Birdwing butterfly. The talk has given us a bit of knowledge on the efforts of
activists on conserving the natural habitat of the butterfly that is almost threatened caused by
urbanization of the area such as deforestation. At the point when deforestation happens
numerous species lose their natural habitats and food supplies. It happens so quickly that
they don't have time to adapt which causes the lost of species. These regions are
industrialized, marketed, urbanized, and utilized for agriculture. Deforestation not only drives
numerous flora and fauna to ended up getting wiped out but also additionally causes soil

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debasement which causes more loss of habitats and eventually, extinction. (Madden and
McQuinn, 2014)

The talk is then furthered with a visit to Insectarium. Insectarium is a live insect zoo,
or an exhibit of live insects kept and preserved in air-tight boxes. To preserve the insects,
several methods were used such as keeping Parasitic Hymenoptera in 95% alcohol and dry
preservation method which is the most commonly used method in preserving butterflies,
moth etc. Locality, date, and collector must be put as labels individually on the specimens.
For dry storage, nearly any kind of container may be used. However, mold and mildew may
build up on specimens even if small amount of moisture is trapped inside the container so
therefore solid containers of metal, glass, or plastic should be avoided. (Veltman, n.d).
Mothballs are commonly used to keep moisture out of the container. Mothballs are able to
protect against insect pests if present inside the box. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) does not advocate the use of mothball as some because some ingredients in
mothballs may be carcinogenic. The active ingredients are very volatile and evaporate in a
quickly when exposed to air. Several laboratory air compressors were placed inside the
insectarium to remove toxicity in the air. However, it may not be 100% effective thus, small
strips or squares cut from dichlorvos-impregnated resin strips may be used instead (Guerra
et al., 2018). The insectarium is also maintained in a way that the temperature of the area is
kept constant at a relatively low temperature. This also helps to preserve the specimens as
well as keeping the longevity of each of the specimens.

Figure 4: Specimens kept inside air-tight containers in Insectarium.

Next in the program was visit to Center for BioEntrepreneur Biotechnology. A talk was
given by Ms. Suhaila in which Plant Tissue Culture was briefly explained to us. We were then
given the chance to visit Tissue Culture Lab. Safety precautions such as is to prevent and
reduce contamination in the lab. To keep the lab sterile and free of contaminations, the lab is
equipped with air filter machines. The lab is also equipped with two sliding doors. Due to
temperature in tropical countries, the atmospheric dusts content are very high. The purpose
of the double sliding doors is to prolong effectiveness of the laminar airflow filter and to filter
out the dusts efficiently (Razdan, 2003). Each of the plants is equipped with a valve and
timer to time the duration of cultivation of new cultures.

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 Plant tissue culture have developed plant cell, tissue, and organ cultures have as an
option over entire plant cultivation in the late decades. All these are for the creation of
secondary metabolites which are utilized as pharmaceuticals, flavours, aromas, colouring
agents, food additives as well as agrochemicals. Plant tissue cultures can create dynamic
active ingredients as well as trial materials studies in synthetic biology field. These active
ingredients biosynthesis of therapeutic plants are now being accomplished through
hereditary and metabolic engineering approaches (Wang et al., 2017). Trigiano and Gray
(2010) stated that Crop Improvement Techniques which was developed over the last three
decades utilize plant tissue culture technique which includes the usage of protoplasts,
haploid culture, embryo rescue, cryopreservation, gene expression regulation and the
production of natural products for economic purposes. Some arguments rose from this issue
in which proper guideline was neglected and is probably a major issue to entrepreneurial
companies. The vulnerability around the administrative and public acceptance and
acknowledgment of products from engineered cell cultures is still the main concern of the
public. This displays the boundary of the uptake of the technology by food product
companies. Plant tissue culture however more advantages than disadvantages. One obvious
advantage includes plant tissue culture helps to reduce plant diseases through cautious
stock selection and sterile techniques. Diseases in future plants can be reduced or even
diminished. This technique gives new healthy offspring for next round of cultivation (Davies
and Deroles, 2014).

Figure 5: Plant tissue culture laboratory.

The last part of the program is visit to Herbarium. Herbarium or also known as
Herbaria and historical center accumulations offer an important and priceless time capsule of
hereditary data on both extinct and surviving species. Herbarium examples give Data on the
population biology of the pastare given as Herbarium examples. This is useful and helpful for
investigations of changing genetic structures. Question about taxonomies, classification,
phylogenetics, functions and development of genes as well as origins of populations can be
addressed by utilizing herbarium specimens (Ristaino, 1998).

Before entering the Herbarium, we were required to clean our shoes from dirts and
soil to prevent bugs from entering the herbarium. Like Insectarium, temperature in the

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Herbarium is kept constant at relatively low temperature to preserve the dried specimens.
We were further explained on several usage of Herbarium in modern world which includes
providing comparative material that is essential for studies biodiversity, as well as being used
for teaching and by the public. The specimens in the Herbarium are kept inside lockers with
each of the specimens holding a specific code and a collection of genera, arranged in
alphabetical order. The alphabetical list is much the handiest to use (Funk, 2003).

Herbaria contain essential data on the biodiversity of plant pathogens of the past and
on the historical backdrop of our science. It is critical that present day plant pathologists keep
on depositing voucher examples of pathogen-contaminated plant materials once more into
existing herbaria. Herbarium is important in a way that specimens from the older days are
still kept whether they still exists or extinct and can be continuously used to study anything
related to the plants. Other than that, Herbarium gives of priceless values and examples for
future conservation and ought not to be belittled. To moderate and conserve population,
species, ecosystem, their distributions, attributes and environments can all be understood
with all data that can be gathered from herbarium labels (Greve et al., 2018).

Figure 6: Visit to Herbarium

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Conclusion

From this practical, it can be concluded that biodiversity plays a big role in and how important
it is for the Earth and all of its components and inhabitants to thrive. Conservation is crucial in
order to sustain living life on earth. Loss of biodiversity and biodiversity conservation are the
main ideas that give the basis to biodiversity administration. The administration of
biodiversity is complex and needs the inclusion of various accomplices running from
legislative organisations to volunteers.