Land Use Planning

Land-use planning comes in the process of organising, managing, and regulating the use of lands and their resources to meet the socio-economic development of the country whilst safeguarding the environment. Land-use planning is used to meet people’s needs in the most efficient and sustainable way while taking into account the land’s natural capacities. Land-use planning is essential in physical environmental management and biodiversity conservation. Impacts due to poor land use are regularly highlighted in the media: river pollution, conflicts of land use such as the citing of housing projects adjacent to landfills - the list goes on. As more competing uses for land and its resources arise, conflict often follows. Land-use planning and management

It’s also are the important reservoirs of carbon, water and biodiversity. The sustainable development and management of wetland and watershed in these area are important in enhancing the socio-economic condition of local communities. Due to its unique ecosystem, wetland provide huge potential for research and development (R&D) in various scientific fields such as socio-economy, biodiversity, climate change and biotechnology. Malaysia has range of policies and laws to guide the management of wetlands in the country. Policies are in place to integrated biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in development and planning ng process. This include National Physical Plan, which determine the general direction and trends for physical development in the country. Such as National Policy on the Environment (2002), the National Policy on Biological Diversity (1998), National Wetland Policy (2004) and National Agricultural Policy. Land and natural resources in Malaysia are mainly managed at state level and as a result state government have established their own policies and

The creation of Protected Areas (PAs) is one of the most effective measures available for conserving biodiversity, but PAs are not meant to be islands in a sea of development. Rather, they must be part of our country’s strategy for sustainable management and wise use of natural resources and they must set within a proper planning context. PAs need not be limited to federal or state sponsored reserves but may also include area managed by indigenous communities, private landowners , industrial holding and others. The PAs are further classified into the six ‘Management Categories’ shown in Table 1. While each of the PA Categories has a different range management objectives, all should have one feature in common: a properly thought through and conducted ‘Management Plan’ process to ensure that the optimum outcomes are