Alex Lechner

Monash University (Indonesia)

ContextLand use changes have modified the extent and structure of native vegetation, resulting in fragmentation of native species habitat. Connectivity is increasingly seen as a requirement for effective conservation in these landscapes, but the question remains: ‘connectivity for which species?’. Objective The aim of this study was to develop and...

Low- and middle-income countries in Southeast and East Asia face a range of challenges related to the rapid pace of urbanisation in the region, the scale of pollution, climate change, loss of ecosystem services and associated difficulties for ecological restoration. Possible pathways towards a more sustainable future lie in the applications of natu...

Tourism on small tropical islands in the Global South is a balancing act between development to improve local livelihoods and the conservation of fragile coastal and coral ecosystems. The objective of our study is to develop a series of new spatial metrics to support sustainable development through assessing the direction and magnitude of tourism d...

Remote sensing provides valuable insights into pressing environmental challenges and is a critical tool for driving solutions. In this Primer, we briefly introduce the important role of remote sensing in forest ecology and management, which includes applications as diverse as mapping the distribution of forest ecosystems and characterizing the thre...

Long-term use of agrochemicals in the oil palm plantation sector, particularly chemical pesticides for pest control, can have a negative impact on the environment. The use of biological control has long been advocated as an alternative to pesticides, but empirical evidence in the context of oil palm plantations is very limited. This study aims to a...

The impacts of urban forest fragmentation on tropical ant foraging activity are poorly understood. The Malaysian giant ant ( Dinomyrmex gigas ) is among the largest ant species worldwide. Colonies of this species contribute to important ecosystem processes such as predation and nutrient cycling in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. Here, we co...

Food is one of the basic necessities for human life. Nutritious food is essential for human health and helps oneself live up to our best potential as productive members of society. In spite of this, 3 billion people are estimated to have limited access to nutrient-rich food, and there are 768 million undernourished people in the globe today. There...

Rapid urban growth is reshaping cities and promoting economic development in low and middle-income countries throughout Southeast Asia, with the prevalence of Micro-, Small-, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) emerging as a crucial factor. This study explores the complex relationship between MSMEs and planned settlements within the Jakarta Metropo...

Social values of land use are often excluded when undertaking integrated flood management as they are harder to quantify. To fill this research gap, a geographic information system application called Social Values for Ecosystem Services was used to assess, map and quantify the perceived social values of flood-prone land use in Kuala Selangor, Malay...

Techniques for mapping and quantifying ecosystem services are gaining increased traction in recent years. They include powerful computational and visual tools for representing ecosystem service supply and for facilitating policy, planning, and management decisions. This chapter describes, evaluates, and critiques the tools and approaches for quanti...

Urban green infrastructure can help cities tackle biodiversity loss and support well-being, but also contribute to climate change mitigation. This can be enhanced with green infrastructure policies that favor biodiversity, residential well-being, or climate benefits such as carbon sequestration. However, assessing public support for policies favori...

An estimated 23 million people live on floodplains affected by potentially dangerous concentrations of toxic waste derived from past and present metal mining activity. We analyzed the global dimensions of this hazard, particularly in regard to lead, zinc, copper, and arsenic, using a georeferenced global database detailing all known metal mining si...

As the mining industry expands, a comprehensive understanding of its socioeconomic risks and benefits is urgently needed. This paper systematically reviews 71 studies (1996–2021) that utilized spatially integrated approaches to evaluate socioeconomic mining impacts. The number of studies that utilize geographic information systems and remote sensin...

Tropical Southeast Asia is a hotspot for global biodiversity, and also a hotspot for rapidly expanding urbanisation. There is a need to identify, protect, restore and connect remaining green spaces in the urban matrix before this opportunity is lost to urban development. The objective of this study is to characterise ecological connectivity for mam...

Infrastructure development is a major driver of biodiversity loss globally. With upward of US$2.5 trillion in annual investments in infrastructure, the financial sector indirectly drives this biodiversity loss. At the same time, biodiversity safeguards (project‐level biodiversity impact mitigation requirements) of infrastructure financiers can help...

Managing nature-based solutions (NBS) in urban areas for carbon mitigation and biodiversity outcomes is a global policy challenge, yet little is known about how to both assess and weave diverse knowledge systems and values into carbon-biodiversity trade-off assessments. This paper examines the spatial relationships between biophysical and social va...

Oil palm agriculture has caused extensive land cover and land use changes that have adversely affected tropical landscapes and ecosystems. However, monitoring and assessment of oil palm plantation areas to support sustainable management is costly and labour-intensive. This study used an unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to map smallholder farms and ap...

At the expense of irreversible biodiversity loss, industrial modern agriculture is expanding in tropical regions. The conversion of forests to large scale monoculture plantations has fragmented and reduced habitat complexity, and altered biotic communities. However, the establishment of agroforestry orchards as a part of a conservation set-aside pr...

Rapidly developing regions in Southeast Asia, such as Kuantan, Malaysia, require robust spatial analysis to understand changing landscape patterns and their socioenvironmental impacts to guide sustainable development and conservation planning. This study aims to characterise and evaluate the historic and future projections of land‐use and land‐cove...

Protecting natural forests such as those identified as high conservation value (HCV) areas may facilitate crop production due to the benefit from ecosystem services provided by biodiversity spill-over from adjacent forests. To investigate the effect of protecting contiguous and isolated forests adjacent to oil palm plantations on crop health, we me...

In Malaysia, land under oil palm plantation has been steadily increasing. Meanwhile voluntary measures to improve sustainability of palm oil production have been introduced including regulation of land conversion to oil palm plantations. The objective of this study is to assess the utility of Google Earth Engine with the LandTrendr algorithm for cl...

Rapidly transitioning the global energy system to renewables is considered necessary to combat climate change. Current estimates suggest that at least 30 energy transition minerals and metals (ETMs) form the material base for the energy transition. The inventory of ETMs indicates a high level of intersectionality with territories less impacted by t...

There are only few studies globally that have documented the linkages between urban green spaces (UGS) and sustainable development goals (SDGs). In Malaysia, there is no existing research evaluating the relationship between UGS and SDGs. In this study, we assessed Malaysians’ perception on the association between UGS and seven selected SDGs, buildi...

Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of global conservation strategies. PAs, however, are not equally effective for all threatened taxa, and it is important to understand taxa‐specific effectiveness of PAs networks. In this study, we evaluate the role of the PAs network on the protection of Asian elephants Elephas maximus and their habitats in S...

Habitat fragmentation is a major threat to natural forests, causing unprecedented biodiversity loss and habitat destruction. To date, the social-economic factors affecting the conservation of fragmented urban forest remnants have been rarely investigated, particularly in the tropics. The objective of this study is to understand the attitudes and wi...

China has emerged as the largest overseas financier of hydropower in low-income countries. Since hydropower dams pose risks to biodiversity, an examination of potential biodiversity impacts of Chinese projects is critically needed. We conducted a biodiversity risk and safeguards assessment of Chinese-funded dams being built in Belt and Road Initiat...

The rapid conversion of highland forests into agricultural areas has caused deforestation in Peninsular Malaysia. Since 2017, in the Cameron Highlands, the Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia has reforested degraded highland areas by planting native tree species. To date, little is known about the effect of highland reforestation on wild mam...

Abstract Large‐scale reforestation can potentially bring both benefits and risks to the water cycle, which needs to be better quantified under future climates to inform reforestation decisions. We identified 477 water‐insecure basins worldwide accounting for 44.6% (380.2 Mha) of the global reforestation potential. As many of these basins are in the...

Urban expansion is a major threat to diversity, especially in rapidly developing tropical countries where urban areas are growing at great pace and protection is limited. We conducted a systematic review of published research on the ecology of lentic habitats in tropical urban areas. The review focused on understanding: (1) how much is currently kn...

Energy transition mineral and metals (ETM) are being widely discussed for their utility in combating climate change. However, their contribution with respect to social and environmental impact does not feature prominently in contemporary debates. In this paper we present findings showing the extent to which the world's ETM projects will intersect w...

Unprecedented urban growth and extensive land use change especially in the Global South has placed increasing pressure on urban ecosystem services (UES). While there are numerous studies modelling and mapping ecosystem services, integrating the outputs of multiple ecosystem service assessments to provide recommendations for nature-based planning re...

The commencement of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration has highlighted the urgent need to improve restoration science and fast‐track ecological outcomes. The application of remote sensing for monitoring purposes has increased over the past two decades providing a variety of image datasets and derived products suitable to map and mea...

Tropical Southeast Asia is a hotspot for global biodiversity, and also a hotspot for rapidly expanding urbanisation. There is a need to identify, protect, restore, and connect remaining green spaces in the urban matrix before this opportunity is lost to urban development. The objective of this study is to characterise ecological connectivity for ma...

Long-term intensive open-pit mining can have huge impacts on ecosystems and the services they provide, affecting the integrity of ecosystem structures, functions and process and thus the “ecological security” of a whole mining region. The indirect and direct impacts of mining are spatially and temporally complex and therefore ecological security pa...

Due to rapid urbanization, logging, and agricultural expansion, forest fragmentation is negatively affecting native wildlife populations throughout the tropics. This study examined the effects of landscape and habitat characteristics on the lesser mouse-deer, Tragulus kanchil, populations in Peninsular Malaysia. We conducted camera-trap survey at 3...

Link to free full text: https://rdcu.be/cEV5e

The edible mushroom Volvariella volvacea or straw mushroom is extensively cultivated throughout the year in countries with warm and humid climates. It has the potential for integration into agroforestry food production systems and support food security strategies via climate- and environmental-friendly agriculture, without adversely affecting fores...

This chapter considers in detail the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus in South and Southeast Asia and provides an overview on how a multisectoral approach could be adopted as a rallying point for sustainable development. Using published literature, this study compiles the lessons learned in addressing resources security and critically reviews importan...

Background Fragmentation and habitat loss can restrict species movement and reduce connectivity, negatively impacting biodiversity. Characterising the overall connectivity of an area can inform better management of human modified landscapes. Contemporary connectivity modelling methods seldom incorporate fine-scale movement patterns associated with...

The conservation significance of the Tasmanian Midlands, an agricultural region that is largely privately owned and has suffered significant land degradation and loss of biodiversity, has been recognised since the 1980s. Four decades of conservation planning and implementation has seen the evolution of biodiversity protection, revegetation, bush re...

• Rapid urbanization and development in Southeast Asia have impacted its high biodiversity and unique ecosystems, directly through the use of forest lands for infrastructure building, and indirectly through increasing ecological footprints. • In Greater Bandung, Indonesia and Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, rapid urbanization over the last thirty y...

Ponds and lakes may be common in urban landscapes and frequently have high biodiversity and conservation value. The importance of landscape-scale conservation of lentic habitat networks has recently been recognised, yet little research has been conducted at this scale. Approaches to inventorying lentic habitats at the landscape-scale are needed to...

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) populations have increased remarkably in many parts of the world. In predominantly Muslim regions such as Peninsular Malaysia, wild boars are native species that have thrived, in part, because Muslims do not hunt them, and also because apex predators such as Malayan tigers (Panthera tigris jacksoni) are declining rapidly. We...

The imperative of a global transition to renewables to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 calls for an examination of the associated biodiversity risks. Hydropower is the biggest source of renewable energy globally, and its remaining untapped potential is concentrated in low and lower-middle income countries which are also among the world’s most bi...

The European Commission (EC) is critical of palm oil production as it has a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk from industrial palm oil expansion pressuring landless/displaced farmers to clear tropical forests. Major palm oil-producing countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia are claiming that the EC’s decision will cause unwarranted obstacl...

Mapping building structures is crucial for environmental change and impact assessment, and is especially important to accurately estimate fossil fuel CO2 emissions from human settlements. In this regard, the objective of this study is to develop novel and robust methods using time-series data acquired from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR)...

Until recently, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has overlooked many of the social and environmental dimensions of its projects and actions in favor of more immediate economic and sociopolitical considerations. The main focus of investments under BRI has largely been to improve transport, telecommunication, and energy infrastructures. However...

Ponds and lakes are common freshwater habitats in urban landscapes, and often have a high biodiversity and conservation value. The importance of landscape-scale conservation of pond networks has recently been recognised, yet the categorisation and classification of pond network spatial structures is missing. Developing spatial methods and tools to...

Plastic waste is one of the world’s most pressing human health and environmental concerns. Plastic constitutes the third highest waste source globally, with the total volume of plastic waste growing in-line with increases in the global population and per capita consumption. Malaysia is tracking global trends in both the overall generation of plasti...

Misconceptions about species’ ecological preferences compromise conservation efforts. Whenever people and elephants share landscapes, human–elephant conflicts (HEC) occur in the form of crop raiding, elephant attacks on people and retaliatory actions from people on elephants. HEC is considered the main threat to the endangered Asian elephant Elepha...

Urban blue-green spaces hold immense potential for supporting the sustainability and liveability of cities through the provision of urban ecosystem services (UES). However, research on UES in the Global South has not been reviewed as systematically as in the Global North. In Southeast Asia, the nature and extent of the biases, imbalances and gaps i...

Despite assurances that Indonesia’s new planned capital in East Kalimantan will be sustainable, there are well-founded fears that it will cause massive environmental damage to Borneo island, one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots and carbon sinks. This policy brief examines the potential impacts, and suggests how the capital move c...

Mining contributes to land cover changes, directly and indirectly affecting the natural landscape and local communities. The need for robust analyses of data on an immediate and regional scale is essential for regulators and mining companies to effectively identify, monitor, sustainably mitigate and manage mining impacts. This study characterized a...

Indonesia's new planned capital in East Kalimantan is being touted as a "smart, green, beautiful and sustainable city" but has stoked fears of massive environmental damage to the island of Borneo, one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots and carbon sinks. Precedents of other planned capitals can contribute to an understanding of the...

The mining industry has been operating across the globe for millennia, but it is only in the last 50 years that remote sensing technology has enabled the visualization, mapping and assessment of mining impacts and landscape recovery. Our review of published literature (1970–2019) found that the number of ecologically focused remote sensing studies...

The fragmentation of forests by agricultural expansion, urbanization, and road networks is an ongoing global biodiversity crisis. In Southeast Asia and other tropical regions, wildlife populations are being isolated into pockets of natural habitat surrounded by road networks and monoculture plantations. Mortality from wildlife–vehicle collisions (W...

International attention on the environmental impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is increasing, but little is known internationally about the large corpus of Chinese BRI environmental research. We present the first systematic review of the Chinese and English-language BRI environmental research, supported with text mining and sentimen...