Setiu Wetlands

Setiu Wetland (Malay: Tanah Bencah Setiu or Laguna Setiu) is a wetland in Setiu District, Terengganu, Malaysia. It is part of the Setiu River basin, and also of the larger Setiu-Chalok-Bari-Merang basin wetland complex. With the size of 23,000 hectares, Setiu Wetlands is the largest natural wetlands in the East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia, combining various ecosystems including freshwater, seawater, brackish water and a 14 km lagoon.

Approximately 75 per cent of Setiu district is wetland areas, which mainly consists Chalok River basin, Bari River basin, and Merang River basin that converge and form a continuous lagoon. These areas start from the coastal lowland plains of the South China Sea in the east to the hilly areas in western Setiu, that includes Mount Tebu. Setiu Wetlands itself is 26 kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres at its widest section.

Setiu Wetlands is a mixture of riverbank riparian forest, peat swamp, mangroves, brackish lagoons with vegetation and sand islands, seagrass beds and sandy beaches. It is also unique for having a diverse array of interconnected ecosystems, namely the sea, beach, mudflat, lagoon, estuary, river, islands, coastal forest and mangrove forest.

The lowland areas forming the Setiu Wetlands contain a large swath of Melaleuca or "Gelam" trees (also known as paperbark tea-tree) that is rare in this country. The river basin also contains other kinds of coastal swamp and freshwater swamp forest such as nipa palms forest, Bruguiera forest, mixed mangrove forest, Lumnitzera forest, Rhizophora forest, Melaleuca forest, and Avicennia forest. Another feature of Setiu Wetlands is the presence of seagrass beds.

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