Malaysian resort island Langkawi can avoid environmental disaster by making the most of flying lemur and other wildlife’s comeback during Covid-19 travel ban, scientist says
- Langkawi faces ecological ruin from badly managed tourism, although the travel ban has helped wildlife, including colugos - flying lemurs - make a comeback
- A primatologist studying the colugo, an ‘evolutionary missing link’, believes more eco-tourism could be the answer, with Sabah in Malaysian Borneo an example
It’s pitch black and cicadas are kicking up their usual frenzy as we glimpse movement in the tropical thicket. What looks like a cross between a huge fruit bat and a squirrel breaks cover by jumping from a high tree trunk into the night. It glides gracefully until it lands on another tree, where it starts feasting on lichen and leaves.
The colugo, also known as “flying lemur”, is one of the world’s strangest mammals – and because it’s most active at night, also one of the least studied. Many – perhaps as many as 33 per square kilometre – live on Langkawi, one of Malaysia’s most popular holiday islands.
With large swathes of primary forest, coastal mangroves and the 500-million-year-old Machinchang Cambrian park, Langkawi was declared Southeast Asia’s first Unesco Geopark, in 2007. But rather than focus on preserving its unique fauna and natural resources through responsible eco-tourism, Langkawi’s authorities preferred to exploit its duty-free status and cheap tax-free alcohol to fashion the swanky resort island that attracted 3.92 million tourists in 2019.
As a result, according to a report published by United States conservation news portal Mongabay in 2018, Langkawi has been taken to the brink of environmental disaster. Little has been done to upgrade the island’s infrastructure and improve its inadequate sewage system, poor waste management and limited water supply. Plastic pollution remains an acute problem.
But one French primatologist is hoping the island’s colugos will help inspire a rethink. “Now that the island is really quiet in terms of tourism [thanks to the Covid-19 travel bans], the wildlife has come back all over the place, and that’s just amazing,” says Dr Priscilla Miard.