On September 22, 2021 Executive Director Meg Lowman was interviewed by SRQ Magazine about TREE Foundation’s Malaysian Walkway being officially named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pictured is the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve in Penang Island, Malaysia. Here is a sneak peek into the article:
“Dr. Meg Lowman, founder and lead biologist of the TREE Foundation, also fondly known as “Canopy Meg,” announced yesterday that the Foundation’s canopy walkway located in Penang Island, Malaysia—dubbed the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve—was officially designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The installation not only helps to grow and revitalize the rainforest and its immense biodiversity, but is a fitting recognition of the unique natural and cultural heritage of Penang Island and its people.
“Biosphere Reserves the world over are celebrated for their exceptional biodiversity and distinct social landscapes as well as for their potential to demonstrate innovative ways of living in harmony with nature,’ said Dato’ Harry A. Cockrell and A.Reza Cockrell, co-founders of The Habitat Group of Malaysia. “With this designation, the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve, which comprises 12,481 hectares of marine and terrestrial ecosystems in the north-western part of Penang Island will be counted among a distinguished global network of 714 Biosphere Reserves across 129 countries.”
The official designation was given by the International Coordinating Council of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme at a meeting held by the United Nations only once or twice a year to distinguish World Heritage sites. This one happened to take place in Abuja, Nigeria on September 15, 2021. “We just received news that the Mission Green UNESCO sanction in Malaysia went from pending to approved,” shares Lowman excitedly. “We’ve been working with the Malaysian government for almost four years, along with a corporate sponsor which helped to build the site, and was so wonderful, they hosted a group of scientists to come out and study the area.” The scientists’ exploratory research, as a whole, found over 1500 species living within this tropical rainforest habitat, Lowman shares.”
Click here to read the full article!
Click here to learn more about CanopyMeg’s work in Malaysia!
If you want to delve deeper into Meg’s adventures in Malaysia and around the world, her recent memoir The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above is available to order from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, your local independent bookseller, or anywhere else books are sold.