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Identifying relatively important ecosystem services beforehand is essential for efficient and effective assessment. Using a best-worst scaling (BWS) method, we investigated the relative importance of cultural ecosystem services (CES) in Japan, where the second phase of national ecosystem service assessment is under consideration. Classifying CES...

In August 2019, the IPCC [1] Special Report on Climate Change and Land [2] (SRCCL), which synthesises the latest available scientific knowledge on the relationship between climate change and land use, was released. When we think about land use, the concept sounds somewhat distant from our day-to-day lives; however, various resources, including food...

It is more than 4 years since the 2030 agenda for sustainable development was adopted by the United Nations and its member states in September 2015. Several efforts are being made by member countries to contribute towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The progress which had been made over time in achieving SDGs can be...

Rapid development in Bintulu has resulted in large-scale changes in land use, especially the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations and industrial tree plantations. Using high-resolution satellite imagery, we analysed land-cover types in the Kemena–Tubau–Lower Jelalong region of Sebauh subdistrict and classified them into nine major land...

This chapter discusses the historical formation and current features of society in the Kemena and Tatau river basins in Bintulu, central Sarawak, where various ethnic groups live close together in a small area as a result of the historical migration of each group. We refer to previous studies and to interviews we conducted, mainly in 2011...

While Borneo is a global biodiversity hotspot, its species-rich natural rainforests have been degraded and deforested in the past few decades by unsustainable shifting agriculture, commercial logging and the rapid development of industrial tree and oil palm plantations. Populations of some wildlife species have decreased drastically due to...

The island of Borneo is regarded as one of the most biologically rich regions in the world, containing some of the oldest remaining tropical rainforests. However, it also suffers high levels of deforestation and degradation to meet the demands for timber extraction and agricultural activities. In Sarawak, areas designated as permanent forests...

With rapid deforestation and forest degradation ongoing in tropical regions, the maintenance of biodiversity and high biomass/carbon stocks can bring additional benefits to the sustainable management of natural forests along with sustainable timber production. However, the measures for improving the maintenance of biodiversity and high biomass are...

The drastic transformation in land use from natural forest to acacia and oil palm plantations in tropical regions is an issue of some controversy. The influence of land-use change on nutrient cycling is not fully understood. In this case, stream water chemistry is one of the most useful indexes of the nutrient status of an ecosystem. We...

It is important to understand carbon (C) dynamics in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems in order to develop a strategy to control carbon dioxide effluxes. However, the factors determining concentrations of riverine carbon are still largely unknown, especially in Southeast Asia. We investigated the spatial distribution of dissolved and particulate...