2007/09/16
By: Jaswinder Kaur

KOTA KINABALU: It’s a low-tech solution, but it could be just what is needed to prevent inbreeding in the orang utan population.
A conservation group has been stringing rope bridges across rivers to replace the trees they used previously.

The first bridge was built across Sungai Resang more than two years ago, and since then Kampung Sukau villagers attached to the Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Project (KOCP) have built another three links.

One is at Sungai Menanggul, a popular spot for viewing wildlife as visitors travel along Sabah’s longest river, the Kinabatangan.

KOCP co-director Dr Isabelle Lackman-Ancrenaz said the main idea of getting orang utans to cross from one forested area to another was to reduce the risk of inbreeding now that the primate has been separated into small sub-populations as a result of forest degradation.
“It is a cheap and simple way of reducing the possibility of inbreeding among orang utans that live in degraded places. Translocating is another method but it has its problems.

“Orang utans may look like solitary animals, but they are part of a well-organised society. Physically moving them to another area may lead to conflicts,” she said.

Single rope bridges cost RM3,000, while double rope ones cost RM6,000, with an average length of 60 metres.

KOCP’s bridges are made of chains wrapped with a hose made of a special fabric as regular ropes rot quickly in the humidity, risking the lives of animals.

The rope bridges were also benefiting other animals, she said.

Proboscis monkeys and pigtail macaques, and even reptiles, use the links.

The KOCP was building two more rope bridges in the area, she added.

Surveys show there are about 11,000 orang utan in Sabah and about 60 per cent live outside protected areas.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/20070916074451/Article/index_html

JAKARTA: Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, wants foreigners to develop new plantations and may prevent them from acquiring existing operations, the agriculture minister said yesterday.

Overseas firms should buy new land and cultivate oil palms, the fruit of which is crushed to produce crude palm oil, instead of acquiring plantations from small holders, Anton Apriantono told reporters. The government aims to limit foreign control of strategic industries.

Plantation companies in Indonesia are expanding to benefit from higher prices of edible oils. Palm oil on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange, the benchmark contract, has risen 26% this year, and traded at RM2,518 a tonne at the end of morning trading.

“We want small-holder plantations to continue to exist,” Apriantono said. Indonesia plans to add 1.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the next three years to the current area of about six million, a government official has said.

Of the planned expansion, 1.375 million hectares would come from newly cleared land, while a further 125,000 hectares would be re-plantings of existing plantations, said Rosediana Suharto, chairwoman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Committee. Oil palms last about 25 years, after which they need replacing. – Bloomberg

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/9/13/business/18871188&sec=business

11 September 2007

A study, prepared for discussion by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) Roundtable on Sustainable Development, concludes that the potential of current biofuel technologies—ethanol and biodiesel—to deliver a major contribution to the energy demands of the transport sector without compromising food prices and the environment is very limited.

The report—Biofuels: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease—suggests that although second-generation technologies are promising, they may never be viable; that the economic outlook for biofuels is “fragile”; and that government policies are “inefficient”, “not cost-effective” and are setting ambitious market shares without an in-depth understanding of a sustainable production level and from where these biofuels could be supplied.

The report, which was leaked prior to public release, is to be discussed today and tomorrow by ministers and representatives meeting in Paris.

The report notes that global production of biofuels amounted to 0.8 EJ in 2005, or roughly 1% of total road transport fuel consumption. Technically, up to 20 EJ from conventional ethanol and biodiesel, or 11% of total demand for liquid fuels in the transport sector, has been judged possible by 2050, with another 12% potentially coming from second-generation biofuel technologies.

Biofuels could thus theoretically achieve a market share of nearly a quarter of the liquid fuels market in 2050 (11% from conventional and 12% from advanced technologies). However, it seems unlikely this potential will be realised, as concerns over food prices and environmental degradation caused by first generation technologies suggest that the potential of conventional technologies might be closer to current production levels. Furthermore, commercialisation of second-generation technologies is still a (distant) possibility with only several pilot and demonstration plants currently being built.

But this is only part of the reason. The unfavourable economics of biofuels also suggests that the market share of nearly a quarter is unlikely to be realised. More realistic is the roughly 13% market share in 2050 calculated by the IEA (2006a)—an estimate that takes relative fossil fuel prices into account. If that target were to be met, the avoided CO2 reduction from increased biofuels would be almost 1.8 Gt, or 3% of energy-related CO2 emissions in a business-as-usual scenario. Given the projected growth in demand for transportation fuels, this will not reduce overall petroleum fuel consumption below current levels but only moderate the growth in demand.

Furthermore, the study concludes, this 3% reduction would come a large cost in the form of required government subsidies.

The cost of obtaining a unit of CO2-equivalent reduction through subsidies to biofuels is extremely high, well over $500 per tonne of CO2-equivalent avoided for corn-based ethanol in the United States, for example, with other researched countries not performing much better. The score is also not very favourable in terms of displacing fossil fuels. In most cases the use of biofuels roughly doubles the cost of transportation energy for consumers and taxpayers together.

The report suggests the following policy directions for discussion:

*

The strategic importance of and objectives for first generation biofuels need to be refocused and refined. International organizations such as the IEA, OECD, FAO and World Bank need to continue to adopt a soundly-based, common understanding of the limits of both traditional and second-generation biofuels in their analysis of energy futures.
*

Priority should be given to research into second-generation biofuels— not only technologies, but also the assumptions regarding the cost and long-term availability of their feedstocks. Domestic policy efforts should be redirected from (subsidy) instruments aimed at the deployment of biofuels in general back to the R&D and demonstration phase of advanced biofuel technologies.
*

Further research is needed to verify the environmental benefits for each biofuel production pathway, feedstock and location.
*

National governments should cease to create new mandates for biofuels and investigate ways to phase them out, preferably by replacing them with technology-neutral policies such as a carbon tax. Such policies will more effectively stimulate regulatory and market incentives for efficient technologies.
*

Policy efforts to develop certification of biofuels must be unified. Only a global and coherent approach stands a chance of making a positive difference.
*

Certification of biofuels—and the design criteria to use them in combination with GHG emissions reduction regulations and preferential tax treatments—should be urgently placed on the WTO agenda. A special committee on trade and environment has been created to channel these discussions and could possibly be used to this end.
*

The WTO should also be used to step up efforts to lower trade barriers to biofuels imports, allowing developing countries that have ecological and climate systems more suited to biomass production to use their comparative advantage.
*

More work needs to be done to assess the relative importance of biofuels in developing countries as an export commodity and as a means to provide excess to modern, more efficient and less polluting energy sources. It may be that in many developing country circumstances it would be more productive to channel efforts to developing other forms of bioenergy than liquid fuels. More help should be provided to developing countries in identifying opportunities to use biofuels to enhance economic progress.

###

Source: http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greencarcongress.com%2F2007%2F09%2Fstudy-for-oecd-.html

Allison Winter, E&E Daily reporter

A bill that would let foreign countries pay off some of their debt by protecting coral reefs and tropical forests sailed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday with unanimous approval.

The committee approved the bill, S. 2020, by voice vote with no debate as part of a larger markup. It would reauthorize an existing “debt-for-nature” program for tropical rain forests and add coral reef conservation to the mix.

Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Joe Biden (D-Del.) — the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Foreign Relations Committee — introduced the bill last week. The pair in a statement said they wanted to give the State Department new authority to allow it to pursue agreements to protect threatened coral reefs in Brazil and Indonesia.

Debt-for-nature programs first started in the late 1980s, when environmental groups saw an opportunity in developing countries with extensive debt and degrading natural resources. Groups started offering to buy off a portion of a developing country’s debt, as long as the country would use a percentage of the proceeds to develop conservation programs. The groups usually paid debts owed to commercial banks.

The U.S. government got involved in 1998, when the first tropical rain forest conservation act allowed the government to relieve some public debt owed to the United States in exchange for support of local tropical forest conservation activities. Countries can engage in debt swaps, buybacks or restructuring.

Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation International are still involved. They match funds to contribute to the program. The groups have invested more than $9.6 million to debt-for-nature swaps.

Twelve countries currently have forest conservation agreements: Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Costa Rica, Jamaica, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, Paraguay and the Philippines. The deals have led to the conservation of more than 47 million acres of tropical forests, according to Lugar’s office.

The bill authorizes $20 million through fiscal 2008 and up to $30 million by 2010.

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Environmental group Climate Ark says that Indonesia’s rainforests contain 60% of all the tropical peat in the world. Peatland rainforests are wet, swampy rainforests that when drained and cleared, their peat filled soils become highly susceptible to long burning, carbon and methane rich fires. Such rainforests on peat soils are one of the world’s most important carbon sinks and play a vital role in helping to regulate the global climate. They are also very rich in biodiversity and a refuge for species like orang-utans, since most of the non-peat lowland forests have already been cleared.

Rainforest peatlands are being destroyed fast; primarily by palm oil, timber, and paper and pulp companies. The Indonesian government has endorsed a massive biofuel program which foresees an increase in oil palm plantations from currently just over 6 million hectares to eventually over 26 million hectares. 5.25 million hectares have just been allocated for biofuel production, including one million hectares to PT SMART, one of the companies which was involved in agreements for a mega-plantation in the part of Kalimantan known as the ‘Heart of Borneo’ which has been halted for the time being, but is likely to reemerge at some point in some guise or other.

Eight countries with the largest tropical forests have agreed to push for their protection to be made eligible for carbon credits. In related news, this week the Top Ten list of the world’s most severely polluted places, were named.

Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia’s environment minister, said this week that Brazil, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Congo and Indonesia, with 80 per cent of the world’s tropical forest cover, had formed the Forestry Eight, whose objective is to have forest preservation included in the successor to the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012. Under Kyoto, only reforestation and afforestation are eligible for carbon credits.

The group plans to meet at the UN-convened gathering on climate change in New York on September 24th. Formal negotiations on the global framework are to begin at a UN conference in Bali in December.

Indonesia and Brazil are the world’s third and fourth largest emitters of greenhouse gases respectively because of the amount of carbon that escapes during deforestation.

The Indonesian government says that the country has lost about 1.87m hectares of forest each year since 2000. Under current carbon trading schemes, protecting the felled trees could have been worth as much as €29 billion a year.

Forests reduce greenhouse gases by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The UK Stern review on climate change estimated that deforestation is responsible for about 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Indonesia’s forest burnings give much grief to neighbouring countries when the vast fires blanket South-East Asia in smog.

The country’s Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar has told Australia’s ABC radio’s PM program that Australia’s A$200 million Global Initiative on Forests and Climate “will not solve too many problems”.

Wetlands International places Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions behind only the United States and China because of the vast tracts of deforested land in Kalimantan, where carbon-rich peat decays and catches fire every year.

According to ABC, last March, Indonesia warmly welcomed Australia’s A$200 million Global Initiative on Forests and Climate, which is aimed fighting climate change by preserving the world’s forests.

In July, $10 million of that money was committed to developing forest protection projects in Indonesia.

But now Minister Witoelar, is questioning what in reality the scheme can achieve.

“Maybe if it is upscaled even more because it does not solve too many problems because $200 million divided into so many areas over five years does not give a lot of forest aid,” he said.

Getting paid for keeping the forests alive will not be easy to win agreement and currently, much deforestation is caused by illegal logging activities, which governments have condoned or been impotent to prevent.

Bloomberg News calculated in a recent article, that by curbing the drainage of the huge peatswamps in Kalimantan and using their stored carbon to offset emissions elsewhere (carbon trading), could be worth as much as €29 billion ($39 billion) per year. This was based on the UN’s current estimate that traded carbon is worth €14.59 per tonne, and on research by WL/Delft Hydraulics and Wetlands International (PEAT-CO2) that shows that 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are being lost from tropical peatswamps each year.

On Wednesday, the Global Canopy Programme is an alliance of 29 scientific institutions in 19 countries, launched of the Forests NOW Declaration in London, which calls on world governments to take urgent action on deforestation in the tropics and sub-tropics, which causes 18-25% of global carbon emissions, more than the world’s entire transport sector.

The Declaration calls for a series of carbon policies and market reforms to incentivise the protection of tropical forests and safeguard the vital services they provide including capture and storage of carbon dioxide.

Forests have been absorbing and storing carbon for millennia and contain 60% of the carbon stored on Earth. Deforestation releases this carbon into the atmosphere contributing significantly to global warming. Action to stop deforestation and to provide sustainable sources of forest products and stimulate forest restoration and the planting of new forests will help substantially in the fight against climate change.

Global Canopy says deforestation, driven by economic forces, also threatens critical natural habitats across the world particularly in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Tropical forests cover less than 7 percent of the Earth’s total surface area but are home to 50 percent of the world’s species and are critical to the survival of over a billion of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. New market-driven incentives are required now if we are to avoid irrevocable damage to our environment and to ourselves.

World’s Most Polluted Places

US-based Blacksmith Institute, an independent environmental group, in partnership with Green Cross Switzerland, this week issued their Top Ten list of the world’s most severely polluted places. Overall, the Top Ten sites lie in seven countries and affect a total of more than 12 million people.

The Top Ten list appears in Blacksmith Institute’s World’s Worst Polluted Places 2007, a report on the places where pollution most severely impacts human health, especially the health of children. The 2007 list contains four new sites - two in India, one in China and one in the republic of Azerbaijan - and six that carry over from the list which debuted in 2006.

“The fact of the matter is that children are sick and dying in these polluted places, and it’s not rocket science to fix them,” says Richard Fuller, founder and director of Blacksmith Institute. “This year, there has been more focus on pollution in the media, but there has been little action in terms of new funding or programs. We all need to step up to the plate and get moving.”

Read the full story at it’s source: http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011159.shtml

September 12, 2007
Windsor Genova - AHN Writer

Jakarta, Indonesia (AHN) - Increasing global demand for biofuels are driving governments and companies in Southeast Asian countries to convert forests and traditional plantations into palm oil farms.

Indonesia is leading the region in expanding palm oil plantations. An official of the energy ministry revealed that 13.5 million acres (5.5 million hectares) will be reserved for biofuel plantations by 2010. Of this area, 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares) will be planted with palm trees.

Evita Herawati, an assistant to Indonesia’s minister of energy, said 13.5 million acres, a size bigger than Denmark, are available in Kalimantan in Borneo island. More than 22 million acres (nine million hectares) are also available elsewhere, she said.

AFP quoted Herawati as saying that the government already signed with companies 58 palm oil production deals worth $12.4 billion.

Many of the companies are from Malaysia, the world’s largest producer of palm oil. A Malaysian security analyst said palm oil producers are expanding in Indonesia because of limited land at home. About 12 percent of the country’s land are palm oil plantations.

Thailand’s agriculture ministry said local rubber and fruit farmers are switching to palm oil. An official of the ministry predicted that palm oil plantations will increase from 79,000 acres (32,000 hectares) in 2006 to more than 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) by the end of 2007.

The official added that over 988,000 acres (400,000 hectares) of farmland in south Thailand may also be planted to palm trees.

The Philippines is earmarking 1.1 million acres (454,000 hectares), mostly in the south, for palm oil plantations, the agriculture department said.

Source: All headline News

September 13, 2007
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Humans remained the number one cause of disasters in Indonesia in 2006, according to the government’s environmental report released Wednesday.

The fifth edition of the report named forest fires, the mudflow in East Java and flooding in several regions as the country’s worst disasters.

“In 2006, we more frequently recorded disasters than in previous years,” State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar told reporters after the launch of the 279-page report.

The ministry issued the first environmental report in 2002.

The latest report also noted that air and water pollution had worsened in Indonesia.

Deputy minister for technical facility development and capacity building Isa Karmisa Ardiputra said haze from forest fires had blanketed Sumatra and Kalimantan as well as neighboring countries and worsened air quality in the effected areas.

Indonesia exported thick haze to Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand during peak forest fires in August, the report says.

It also says the smoke shrouds about 524 million hectares of land on Sumatra and Kalimantan islands and raises particulate matter pollution to an alarming level.

“In Jambi, the unhealthy air hit 20 days from September to October,” it says.

The report also quotes reports from Singapore’s major publisher Singapore Press Holding as saying that traffic accidents rose 170,000 cases from 60,000 cases in Singapore due to thick smoke haze from Indonesia last year.

The suffocating smoke from the forest fires has been blamed on local farmers and companies clearing land for new plantations by using illegal slash-and-burn methods during the dry season.

The second worst disaster, according to the report, is the hot mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java.

The report says the disaster has affected residents socially, economically and environmentally.

In May 2006 a gas drilling well owned by PT Lapindo Brantas hit a underground mud volcano. Since then, mud has spewed from the site, leaving more than 9,000 people homeless.

Coordinating Minister for the People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie’s family has a controlling stake in Lapindo.

The report said the levels of metal pollutants in the mud — including zinc, copper, lead and cadmium exceeded tolerable limits.

The ministry said the metals, along with fenol pollutants, had reached the Porong River in October, raising concerns about local wildlife and fish stocks.

Meanwhile, floods hit almost every provinces in the country last year, caused by poor land use management by city administrations and widespread deforestation.

The report recorded there 44 big floods and 31 landslides last year.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20070913.B08&irec=7

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
2007/09/12

Gorillas, orangutans, and corals are among the plants and animals which are sliding closer to extinction.

The Red List of Threatened Species for 2007 names habitat loss, hunting and climate change among the causes.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction, while prospects have brightened for only one.

The IUCN says there is a lack of political will to tackle the global erosion of nature.

Governments have pledged to stem the loss of species by 2010; but it does not appear to be happening.

“This year’s Red List shows that the invaluable efforts made so far to protect species are not enough,” said the organisation’s director-general, Julia Marton-Lefevre.

“The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing, and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis.”

One in three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds and 70% of plants so far assessed are believed to be at risk of extinction, with human alteration of their habitat the single biggest cause.

Critical list

The tone of this year’s Red List is depressingly familiar. Of 41,415 species assessed, 16,306 are threatened with extinction to a greater or lesser degree.

The main changes from previous assessments include some of the natural world’s iconic animals, such as the western lowland gorilla, which moves from the Endangered to the Critically Endangered category.

Numbers have declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years.

Forest clearance has allowed hunters access to previously inaccessible areas; and the Ebola virus has followed, wiping out one-third of the total gorilla population in protected areas, and up to 95% in some regions.

Ebola has moved through the western lowland gorilla’s rangelands in western central Africa from the southwest to the northeast. If it continues its march, it will reach all the remaining populations within a decade.

The Sumatran orangutan was already Critically Endangered before this assessment, with numbers having fallen by 80% in the last 75 years.

But IUCN has identified new threats to the 7,300 individuals that remain. Forests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, and habitat is being split up by the building of new roads.

In Borneo, home to the second orangutan species, palm oil plantations have expanded 10-fold in a decade, and now take up 27,000 sq km of the island. Illegal logging reduces habitat still further, while another threat comes from hunting for food and the illegal international pet trade.

So fragmented have some parts of the Bornean forest become that some isolated orangutan populations now number less than 50 individuals, which IUCN notes are “apparently not viable in the long term”.

Straight to zero

The great apes are perhaps the most charismatic creatures on this year’s Red List, but the fact they are in trouble has been known for some years. Perhaps more surprising are some of the new additions.

“This is the first time we’ve assessed corals, and it’s a bit worrying because some of them moved straight from being not assessed to being possibly extinct,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of IUCN’s species programme.

“We know that some species were there in years gone by, but now when we do the assessment they are not there. And corals are like the trees in the forest; they build the ecosystem for fish and other animals.”

IUCN is now embarking on a complete assessment of coral species, and expects to find that about 30% to 40% are threatened.

The most glaring example of a waterborne creature failed by conservation efforts is probably the baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, which is categorised as Critically Endangered, Possibly Extinct.

This freshwater species appears to have failed in its bid for survival against the destructive tides of fishing, shipping, pollution, and habitat change in its one native river. Chinese media reported a possible sighting earlier this year, but the IUCN is not convinced; with no confirmed evidence of a living baiji since 2002, they believe its time on Earth may well be over.

If so, it will have become a largely accidental victim of the various forces of human development. Not so the spectacular Banggai cardinalfish; a single decade of hunting for the aquarium trade has brought numbers down by an astonishing 90%.

Many African vultures are new entrants on this year’s list. But birds provide the only notable success, with the colourful Mauritius echo parakeet making it back from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

Intensive conservation work has brought numbers up from about 50 to above 300.

But the gharial, a crocodilian found in the major rivers of India and Nepal, provides a cautionary tale of what can happen when conservation money and effort dry up.

A decade ago, a programme of re-introduction to the wild brought the adult population up from about 180 to nearer 430. Deemed a success, the programme was stopped; numbers are again hovering around 180, and the gharial finds itself once more on the Critically Endangered list.

Climate of distraction

IUCN says that it is not too late for many of these species; that they can be brought back from the brink.

It is something that the world’s governments have committed to, vowing in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level”.

“Governments know they are going to fail to reach that target,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, “and not just in terms of a few species - the failure is really massive.

“We know that it is possible to reverse the trend, but the causes are so huge and massive and global, and there is still a lack of attention to the crisis that biodiversity faces.”

Many in the environmental movement argue that too much money and attention has gone on climate change, with other issues such as biodiversity, clean water and desertification ignored at the political level.

IUCN’s assessment is that climate change is important for many Red List species; but it is not the only threat, and not the most important threat.

There are conflicts between addressing the various issues, with biofuels perhaps being the obvious example. Useful they may turn out to be in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; but many conservationists are seriously concerned that the vast swathes of monoculture they will bring spell dire consequences for creatures such as the orangutan.

***

RED LIST DEFINITIONS
Extinct - Surveys suggest last known individual has died
Critically Endangered - Extreme high risk of extinction - this some Critically Endangered species are also tagged Possibly Extinct
Endangered - Species at very high risk of extinction
Vulnerable - Species at high risk of extinction
Near Threatened - May soon move into above categories
Least Concern - Species is widespread and abundant
Data Deficient - not enough data to assess

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/6990095.stm

September 11, 2007
Bambang Parlupi, Contributor, Banjarmasin

Once a concession zone, exploited without planning by local and national companies, Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan was declared a protected public forest on Oct. 19, 2004, through a Forestry Ministry decree.

“Ninety-five percent of its ecosystem is composed of peat soil,” said head park control officer Drasospolino.

He said peat land in Central Kalimantan had been severely damaged by development activities, forest fires and illegal logging.

The one-million-hectare peat land project undertaken by the previous administration, east of the province, has also been forsaken.

“The region’s only peat zone is in Sebangau,” Drasospolino said.

Covering an area of 568,700 hectares in the regencies of Katingan, Pulang Pisau and the city of Palangkaraya, the park is a combination of the subtypes of mixed swampy forest, transitional forest, lowland canopy forest and granite forest, where 106 species of birds, 35 mammals and several groups of primates can be found.

“Sebangau is also home to rare primates like Kalimantan’s orangutans and bekantan (proboscis monkeys),” said Nancy Ariaini, a communications officer of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Indonesia at the Sebangau Conservation Project, Central Kalimantan.

Tumbang Bulan is one of the locations where orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) can be viewed in their natural habitat. Bekantan can be seen in the forest along Katingan River, while rare birds like rhinoceros hornbills (Buceros rhinoceros) and brahminy kites (Haliartus Indus) flock to the banks of the Sebangau River.

A study conducted in 2004 listed the population of orangutans at 6,200-6,900, with 15 spots of habitat scattered over the park such as the area upstream of Bulan River and Gunung Kaki hill.

“Sebangau National Park serves as the largest orangutan habitat in the whole of Kalimantan, even in the world,” said Drasospolino, adding that there were 166 plant species in the park.

Before its conservation status, the zone saw a lot of illegal logging operations in its adjacent areas from 1997 to 2003. “Illegal wood trading and sawmill businesses used to be run along the Sebangau and Katingan river plains,” Drasospolino said.

But since the government’s ban on the trade and the tough action against illegal loggers, such activities have ceased considerably and the sawmills have mostly closed down.

To restore the damaged areas, the national park in cooperation with WWF Indonesia and the local forestry office has undertaken a critical land replanting program in Pulang Pisau regency, covering 300 hectares during the period of December 2005 to February 2006. However, the presence of this park is also questioned by some members of the communities bordering it.

Aji, 52, a farmer in Mendawai district, Katingan regency, for instance, has been wondering about the exact border between the park and local people’s plantations. He said he had been growing crops on the fringe of the forest, just as locals had been doing for generations, until one day, it was declared a protected public forest.

He also inquired why prescribed burning, which had traditionally been practiced in the planting season, was now banned. Aji, who has five children and three grandchildren, said he knew how to safely carry out controlled burning to stimulate the germination of desirable plants and get rid of the weeds.

For example, burning must not be done during strong winds to prevent the fire from spreading into the forest, while only used farms covered with bushes are burned. He said villagers would not purposely burn a natural forest, as “our livelihoods depend on rattan, wild animals and medicinal herbs”.

According to Aji, the manual way of shrub and weed removal by means of hoes is very hard and expensive, so that September is the time for farmers to cultivate land by burning it first.

After the fire is out, the soil is left idle for a month. Only later will it be plowed for growing paddy, with a harvest rate of two tons per hectare after six months and a sale price of Rp 3,500 per kilogram of rice. The land is again left until the next burning time.

Like Aji, all the Mendawai farmers near Sebangau prefer to grow paddy though they have to burn bushes to prepare the soil. Vegetables are high yielding plants in the district because of its fertile land but the main constraint is marketing, as it is very expensive to transport them to the city. Chili, for instance, only costs Rp 3,000 per kg, so that people in the interior have long been hoping for road access to sell their farm produce and fish, instead of the river route so far taken.

Sadly, Katingan regency is now building a road that belongs to the conservation zone. Less than 20 kilometers long and located in Mendawai district, the road leads to the Kaki hill without passing interior village settlements, thus reducing its proper function. “The road construction should have been subjected to an environmental impact analysis for being part of the park,” Nancy pointed out.

Meanwhile, Sebangau National Park still offers other tourist attractions like Lake Jalanpangen, Lake Purun, and Petak Bahandang village on the Katingan riverbank, where people can enjoy the sunset scenery. Drosospolino concluded that the park also planned to develop limited tourism for orangutan watching, besides serving as a place for environment training and river cruising to observe exotic flora and fauna.

Photo credit and caption:
Workers open up a new road linking Mendawai district to Kaki Hill in Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan. Critics have said the project fails to provide access to interior settlements. (JP/Bambang Parlupi)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20070911.R01&irec=0

09/09/07

Pelaihari, S Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - Some 60 nasalis larvatus, sp (local monkey) were found living in group in an untapped forest in Asam Asam area in Tanah Laut (Tala) district by researchers of the South Kalimantan-chapter of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), an official has said.

The finding of the endangered nasalis larvatus (locally called bekantan) last August was incredible as the albino mammal has been threatened with extinction, South Kalimantan chapter of BKSDA chairman Siswoyo said here Sunday.

Even, Kaget island which was turned into a nasalis larvatus habitat only has a smaller number of nasalis larvatus, he said.

Nasalis larvatus population in Kaget island has dwindled due to mining activities near the island, he said.

“The finding of around 60 bekantan monkeys which like to live in companionship in a solitary place is very encouraging,” he said.

To maintain the population of the endangered animal, the South Kalimantan-chapter of BKSDA has asked Tala district head Adriansyah to ban any group from doing activity in Kaget island.

“The Tala district head has agreed with the idea. BKSDA has also asked South Kalimantan governor Rudy Ariffin to help protect Kaget island from any mining activities which can harm the population of nasalis larvatus,” he said.

Source: Antara

Sept 9, 2007

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia and Indonesia on Sunday signed a deal that aims to preserve 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of peat forest in Indonesia’s Kalimantan region, re-flood 200,000 hectares of dried peat land and plant up to 100 million trees.

Australia would contribute A$30 ($22 million) to the project, which aims to raise up to A$100 million over four years and cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 700 million tonnes over 30 years, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said in a statement.

A failed 1990s plan to convert 1 million hectares of Kalimantan’s peat swamp forests into rice fields sucked dry huge areas of cleared forest, leaving a combustible substance that burns in the dry season and sends a choking haze billowing across the region.

“The deforestation and burning of Indonesia’s vast peat lands is the largest single source of its greenhouse gas emissions,” Downer said.

A declaration was signed by Downer and his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirajuda to establish the project, which would work with other countries, international non-government organizations and the private sector to attract funding.

Source: Reuters

The Star: 4 September 2007
by Stephen Then

MIRI: The boycott of Malaysian palm oil and its by-products by a giant supermarket chain in Britain smacks of discrimination, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui.

The move by the British ASDA chain of supermarkets to ban the sale of Malaysian palm oil and related products from their retail outlets recently was very damaging and may cause similar reaction among other retail chains in Europe, he said.

The ministry has written to the company’s headquarters in Britain seeking an explanation on why it has boycotted Malaysia’s palm oil and yet continue to sell edible oils from Western countries, he told The Star in an interview yesterday.

“We want to know why they have boycotted our palm oil and yet continue selling soya oil and rape-seed oil. We told them that we feel this is a very unfair policy that is discriminatory in nature,” he said.

The boycott was believed to be the result of massive anti-palm oil activities in several parts of Europe. They were propagated by those out to tarnish the image of palm oil and related products.

These parties claim that Malaysian oil palm plantations have resulted in the ‘genocide’ of orang-utans and that the cutting down of forests for these plantations were causing global warming.

Chin had described these claims as lies and two months ago, he went to Europe to meet non-governmental organisations and government leaders to try to counter the anti-palm oil activists.

He said that certain countries, like the Netherlands, had been fair in the way they view the palm oil issue.

“The Netherlands views environmental issues like climate change very seriously. Environment Minister Jacqueline Crammer will be in Malaysia soon to discuss and see for herself the sustainable way we cultivate our oil palm plantations,” he said, adding that the Netherlands imports 1.5 million tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia annually.

Chin hopes that the Netherlands will help to convince other European Union members that any boycott of the country’s palm oil or any related products is unjustified.