Urban green space and urban biodiversity: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Urban green space plays an important role in enhancing the quality of environment especially for urban biodiversity. Declining biodiversity around the world has received much attention among academics, professionals and citizens. The United Nations has declared year 2010 as the ‘International Year...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
Canadian Center of Science and Education
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/37486/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/37486/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/37486/1/J._Sustainable_Development_Zainul_2014.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/37486/4/37486_urban%20green%20space_scopus.pdf |
| Summary: | Urban green space plays an important role in enhancing the quality of environment especially for urban
biodiversity. Declining biodiversity around the world has received much attention among academics,
professionals and citizens. The United Nations has declared year 2010 as the ‘International Year of Biodiversity’.
Urban biodiversity movement is important to ensure healthy city environments. Despite this ongoing movement,
urban dwellers have little knowledge about conservation of biodiversity particularly wildlife. Moreover,
biodiversity has received little attention from built environment practices (Brown & Grant, 2005; Niemelä,
1999).
In general, urban wildlife habitat is protected as reserved forest. Many species of wildlife are generally found in
such reserved forests. In comparison, the scale of urban parks in Kuala Lumpur is massive, much larger than
protected forests. This paper presents the situation of urban wildlife species and the quality of habitats in Kuala
Lumpur. It is found that many factors contribute to the healthy conservation of urban wildlife such as quality and
variety of habitats, ornamental versus native vegetation and ecological design. The findings highlight that
common urban birds are dominant in urban green spaces regardless of the size of the green spaces. However,
only larger urban green spaces help protect species. Finally, the study concludes that urban wildlife in Kuala
Lumpur is rapidly declining and that there is a greater need for the community and stakeholders to promote
programs and activities to preserve and enhance urban wildlife. Development of comprehensive acts, policies
and guidelines are vital for urban wildlife protection.
Keywords: urban wildlife, ecological design, wildlife management, urban green space, conservation |
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