An analysis on recreational forest landscape development in Selangor, Malaysia

Recreational forest landscape in Peninsular Malaysia is managed and developed by Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia. However, rapid development of these areas has caused the management of the recreational forest to be given to other parties such as state tourism board and local authority. This scenario has seriously affected recreational forest landscape development. Their current developments focus on how to generate more revenue for management purposes and profits. Indirectly, this approach gives an impact on recreational forest landscape sustainability. Forest landscape development and management are the two main issues. Both issues had contributed to the failure of several recreational forest sites due to lack of visitors’ number and lack of support from local people. The objective of this article is to analyse the recreational forest landscape development implementation in three selected recreational forest sites, in Selangor, as a case study. The study applied two methods namely interview and field observation. Interviews were carried out to gain detail and accurate information regarding landscape development strategy of study areas. Field observations recorded information regarding physical characteristics of study sites. Result showed that landscape of the study areas needed to be properly planned and carefully developed. To achieve a higher sustainable landscape level, the plan must be implemented. Management of the forest landscapes needed to be improved. This is very important to ensure that the original goals of recreational forest landscape establishment as to preserve and conserve forest areas as well as for human wellbeing, can be achieved. Therefore, the relevant parties need to put an effort to ensure that development of the existing recreational forest landscape is carried out systematically and managed properly for the present and future human generations.