Protected areas (PAs) are crucial for conserving biodiversity, but there is controversy over whether they effectively reduce deforestation because, for many of the PAs evaluated to date, pressure from deforestation occurred both inside the PAs and in the areas surroundings them. This is especially the case for tropical PAs in Southeast Asia. We examined the impact of a protected area on tropical rainforests inside and surrounding Endau-Rompin National Park (ERNP) in southern Peninsular Malaysia by mapping and analyzing forest cover changes and fragmentation between 1992 and 2016. The results showed that the forests inside ERNP were well protected, but greater forest loss and fragmentation were found surrounding ERNP, especially beyond the 10-km buffer zone of the park, due to large-scale agricultural land conversion, particularly for oil palm plantation. The deforestation rate in areas surrounding PAs in the region increased from 250ha yr^－1 during 1992-2007 to 1,700ha yr^－1 during 2012-2016. In the buffer zone (BZ), the deforestation rate was extremely high during 2007-2012 at 1,800ha yr^－1, but decreased to 440ha yr^－1 during 2012-2016. This suggests that in this region, PAs might be ineffective against deforestation in their surrounding areas. Continual deforestation and fragmentation are expected to occur surrounding ERNP, threatening its protected boundary. These activities may reduce the effectiveness of ERNP for wildlife habitat conservation.

This paper aims at clarifying how immigrants from rural areas use the outskirts of Bintulu City in Sarawak, Malaysia and form places of residence there. The area under tropical rain forest climate conditions in Southeast Asia generally has a sparse population. In recent decades, urban areas have started to grow rapidly. In the state of Sarawak, urban areas have developed, and the formation of squatter areas by immigrants from rural areas has been reported. Until a few decades ago, after leaving urban areas, the landscape immediately changed from an urban landscape into a rural one consisting mainly of forests, dotted with swidden farms and longhouses. Recently, however, in areas such as those after leaving the urban area (urban outskirts) of Bintulu City, in addition to shops and offices managed by the Chinese, longhouse communities (LHCs) formed by immigrants from rural areas are densely dotted. In such LHCs, dwellings and ways of living are observed to have different characteristics from those in rural LHCs and squatter areas in urban areas. Characteristics of LHCs in urban outskirts are shown below. Regarding land acquisition, the land was in most cases purchased from former occupants. Regarding members of the LHCs, in LHCs formed before the 1960s, many males married in and households moved in around the 1970s and 1980s. On the other hand, in newly formed LHCs, in many cases no kinship links or very weak kinship links between households are observed. Regarding livelihoods, many members of LHCs work in the urban area, while some who own land cultivate cash crops such as oil palm. Suburban formation has begun as a mix of such LHCs, Chinese shops and offices, and forests in the study area.