Sulettaria lambirensis

Lowland Dipterocarp forests of the region have suffered intensive deforestation. These forests have been rapidly converted to oil palm plantations or commercially logged at unprecedented rates over the past ten years. The taxon was collected within the Lambir Hills National Park where the original vegetation is thought to have remained almost intact. However, even protected areas may become susceptible to illegal and rampant logging, extraction and burning activities, in the region. There has also been an increasing frequency of drought in the region. In the Lambir Hills National Park brief drought was not infrequent but severe drought was rare and usually associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillations. There has been a trend of increasingly strong El Niño events and more severe droughts as a result. This can cause higher plant mortality through increased water stress and also it increases the fire risk, which affects both plants and pollinators. After the drought of 1998, the most severe on record for the Lambir Hills National Park, damaging fires were experienced (Harrison 2005). The population appears to be very small and is likely to be very vulnerable to disturbance and stochastic events. Many species of Amomum are used in traditional Chinese medicine, however there is no known ethnobotanical use of this recently described species (Xia et al. 2004). Gingers have enjoyed popularity as an ornamental plant in Asia and the Far East for centuries. Ornamental gingers have rapidly increased in popularity in the past few years, in the western world (West Demmy and Burch 1998), which has promoted an increase in illegal collecting. It is not known whether extraction threatens the population of A. lambirense.

This species was collected within the Lambir Hills National Park, which covers ca 7,000 ha of mostly intact lowland Dipterocarp forest. This park has an outstanding regional and global conservation significance for its extraordinary species-rich forest. The taxon does not benefit from any legal protection in Malaysia and was not listed in the Gingers of Sarawak, published in 2006 (Poulsen 2006). Surveys and censuses should be conducted at the two historical sites of collection and in similar habitats within the park to determine current occurrence, range and size of the population and if local extinction has occurred. Population viability analysis and genetics should be studied as well as the biology and ecology of this rare endemic. The taxon is not known to be grown ex situ. Sample of seeds should be collected for germplasm conservation.