UM Professor Helps Malaysia Develop Conservation Areas, Protect Species

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Jedediah Brodie has spent a career tromping around tropical rainforests, conducting on-the-ground research in some of the world’s most lush and diverse regions.

Jedediah Brodie has spent a career tromping around tropical rainforests, conducting on-the-ground research in some of the world’s most lush and diverse regions.

An ecologist and conservation biologist, Brodie has spent the past 20 years working with nonprofits and state governments in Malaysian Borneo in the South China Sea to conserve land, wildlife and plant species. His work buoys species protection, tourism and environmental longevity for the region.

Now, the University of Montana associate professor in UM’s Division of Biological Sciences has published a paper detailing a major conservation success in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where Brodie and a team of scientists worked to increase Sabah’s rainforest protection. Co-authors include UM Postdoctoral Researcher Sara Williams and a cohort of international scientists.

The State of Sabah recently committed to increasing conserved areas by almost a million acres, a move that bucks the international trend of tropical deforestation and climate change devastation. State officials contracted Brodie and colleagues to identify the best places for new protected areas that would most effectively conserve biodiversity and maintain forest carbon. Their study compared different possibilities for the creation of new national parks and conservation forests, increasing the protected area of an island renowned for its rainforests and diverse wildlife.

Read more at The University of Montana

Image: University of Montana associate professor Jedediah Brodie recently published a paper detailing a major conservation success in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where Brodie and a team of scientists worked to increase the state's rainforest protection. Photo courtesy of Brodie (Credit: Jedediah Brodie)