KOTA KINABALU, May 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysian elephant conservationist Dr Nurzhafarina Othman has been awarded the prestigious 2025 Whitley Award by the UK-based Whitley Fund for Nature for her pioneering work in protecting Bornean elephants in Sabah.
Nurzhafarina, founder and director of the non-profit conservation organisation Seratu Aatai, meaning "solidarity”, and also serves as a senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, received the £50,000 (about RM287,000) award from the charity's Patron, Her Royal Highness (HRH) The Princess Royal at the Royal Geographical Society, London last night.
Whitley Fund for Nature said in a statement that it supports her efforts to save the remaining 300 Bornean elephants on the east coast of Sabah, where human-elephant conflict has intensified due to shrinking habitats.
The statement added that the award recognises her innovative approach to engaging palm oil stakeholders in the Lower Kinabatangan region to implement elephant-friendly practices and create protected corridor networks for the world's smallest elephant species.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bornean elephants have lost 60 per cent of their forest habitat in the past four decades due to logging and palm oil cultivation. The species was listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List last year.
Nurzhafarina‘s project focuses on collaborating with both large palm oil companies and smallholders in the Lower Kinabatangan, where 40 per cent of the land is owned by 11 major palm oil companies and there are about 150 independent smallholders.
The initiative includes citizen science programmes, implementation of best practices for habitat connectivity and contributions to the proposed Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve.
According to the statement, Seratu Aatai, established in 2018, is currently the only conservation organisation in Sabah exclusively dedicated to the conservation of the Bornean elephant. The project will also benefit other endangered species in the region, including orangutans, Sunda clouded leopards and sun bears.
Nurzhafarina is among six conservationists worldwide to receive the 2025 Whitley Award. Since its inception in 1993, the Whitley Fund for Nature has provided £24 million in funding to 220 conservationists across 80 countries.
The others are Brazilian Dr Yara Barros, who works to protect jaguars by teaching communities to coexist with the apex predator in Iguaçu National Park in the Atlantic Forest; Colombia's Dr Andrés Link, who works to protect the critically endangered brown spider monkeys in the lowland rainforests of central Colombia and reconnecting the species’ fragmented habitat through a network of private protected areas;
Argentina's Dr Federico Kacoliris, who is expanding protection for the country’s most threatened amphibian, the El Rincón stream frog, and its river habitat in the volcanic Somuncura Plateau; Nepal's Reshu Bashyal, who works on addressing the illegal trade in orchids and yews which are rapidly disappearing because of a boom in demand for their medicinal and ornamental value; and
Indonesia's Rahayu Oktaviani, who is working on ensuring continuous canopy for the endangered Javan gibbon on Java, one of the most densely populated islands on earth.
-- BERNAMA
