14.5.3 : Programs towards good aquatic stewardship practices
UTM and Gamuda Land Establish Strategic Partnership with MoU Signing Ceremony on World Wetlands Day, 2024
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) is actively developing and supporting programmes and incentives that encourage and maintain good aquatic stewardship practices through a high-impact strategic partnership with Gamuda Land Sdn. Bhd., formalized by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on World Wetlands Day.
The collaboration's primary goal is to enrich academic, research, and community-based endeavors related to sustainable environmental management, with a clear focus on the aquatic and wetland environment at the Wetlands Arboretum Centre at Gamuda Cove. This partnership provides concrete, incentivized programs that reinforce aquatic stewardship:
- Direct Industry-Academia Programs: The MoU facilitates professional development and student engagement by ensuring that UTM's Landscape Architecture students commence internships at Gamuda Parks and participate in industry experience in studios and courses (such as field studies and project design). This hands-on involvement immerses students in real-world stewardship practices related to wetland and green area management.
- Incentivizing Excellence in Stewardship: The partnership directly provides incentives by supporting the Academic Excellence Award with cash prizes for the best academic students. This action rewards and encourages academic dedication to principles that underpin sound aquatic stewardship, such as sustainable design and planning.
- Community Social Collaboration (CSR): The collaboration includes explicit CSR initiatives to formulate park and green Area Guidelines, as well as collaborative events like garden landscape design competitions and landscape furniture initiatives. These programs directly engage students and the wider community in designing and managing green infrastructure, thereby promoting and maintaining good stewardship practices for wetlands and aquatic environments.
- Research and Knowledge Transfer: The partnership extends to a research grant and the implementation of professional/short courses, generating new knowledge and transferring best practices for sustainable land and water management directly from academia and industry to future professionals and the public.
By integrating these practical, incentivized, and collaborative programs, UTM ensures that aquatic stewardship is not just taught in a classroom, but actively practiced and rewarded within a high-impact industry setting.
Source :
In June 2024, UTM, via its Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Water Security (IPASA), joined MHB, the Pasir Gudang City Council and local community stakeholders to formalise a Memorandum of Agreement for the “MHB River Rehabilitation Programme” focused on Sungai Buluh in Pasir Gudang, Johor. The initiative is part of a three-year strategic roadmap by MHB targeting four core initiatives: stakeholder awareness & education, river revitalisation, greening & decarbonisation, and capacity building & training.
By bringing together academic research capacity at UTM and industry commitment at MHB, the programme supports direct ecosystem restoration and biodiversity support in a river corridor under environmental stress. With Pasir Gudang’s industrial and urban pressures, the rehabilitation of the river acts as biodiversity-habitat restoration, pollution reduction and ecosystem service protection. The signing of the MoA and launch event signal a transition from passive concern to structured, collaborative action — research-driven monitoring, revitalisation works and inclusive community engagement.
The programme’s multi-pronged approach is highly consistent with maintaining and extending ecosystems: it prioritises greening (which may include riparian re-vegetation), decarbonisation (which cuts stressors on the aquatic ecosystem), and stakeholder capacity building (so local actors can better protect the river’s biodiversity). Because the river’s condition is integrally tied to aquatic fauna and flora and downstream marine links, this direct work helps preserve biodiversity across freshwater to coastal zones. The partnership sets up an ongoing regime of research, monitoring and intervention: UTM’s role provides data and technical input; MHB’s commitment provides funding and industry application; the community connection ensures local biodiversity and ecosystem outcomes are viewed at scale.
This alignment meets key criteria under the Sustainability Impact Ratings methodology for “direct work on ecosystems and biodiversity” — demonstrating a university-industry collaboration with measurable intervention, ecosystem oriented framing, and a threatened ecosystem context. The initiative moves beyond awareness alone: it embodies tangible restoration efforts and ecosystem protection, and enables biodiversity-sensitive ecosystem management. By institutionalising a three-year roadmap and including greening and decarbonisation alongside river revitalisation, the programme conveys a systemic trajectory for ecosystem enhancement and biodiversity extension.
In summary, UTM’s strategic partnership with MHB in the MHB River Rehabilitation Programme demonstrates how higher education institutions can engage directly with industry to maintain and extend ecosystems and biodiversity in a threatened river system. It is a robust exemplar of direct ecosystem-based action, bridging research, industrial capacity and community stakes for long-term ecosystem resilience and biodiversity conservation.
Source :
