Buton Island, Indonesia's bird paradise almost lost
Buton Island, Indonesia's bird paradise almost lost
Scientists assisted by volunteers from around the world have
been collecting data on birds found in Buton Island's rain
forests as well as the coral reef of the nearby Wakatobi islands.
Operation Wallacea, a three-year project funded by HongkongBank,
was launched last year to establish wildlife reserves and to help
preserve Buton's best rain forests and Wakatobi's coral reef.
Pandaya from The Jakarta Post was invited by HongkongBank to
observe the bird survey and the condition of the island's rain
forests.
BAUBAU, Southeast Sulawesi (JP): The famous exotic wildlife on
Buton Island is not easy to preserve.
Environmentalists, scientists and government officials are
working hard to preserve the tropical forests that nature lovers
warn will eventually vanish due to logging and slash-and-burn
farming activities.
Rapid development, the resettlement of poor families from
Java, Bali, Madura and other crowded areas has put increasing
pressure on the 150-kilometer-long Buton.
A lack of funds and forest rangers has made it difficult for
the government to win its war against illegal logging, bird
trapping, the overharvesting of bird eggs and the plundering of
forest products.
"If the poachers and the greedy bureaucrats get the upper
hand in the war for the jungle, nature lovers will, in a matter
of years, sing a swan song," was how Wayan Dirgayasa, a
researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), put
it.
Buton, he fears, will eventually lose the great "whooz-whooz"
sounds made by the huge, exotic Hornbill as it flies over the
forest. This exotic bird is protected because it is very much
sought after by poachers for sale or even for its meat.
Bird enthusiasts may never again be able to watch the female
Hornbill lock herself up in a tree crevice until her chicks are
mature enough to support themselves. Wayan said he would also
miss the spectacular "whoong-whoong" call of the Bay Coucal, a
dove-sized bush bird that the inexperienced birder could mistake
for a larger, ostrich-size bird due to its whistle.
But in an encouraging gesture, the government is responding to
environmentalists' concern about the degradation of Buton.
With financial aid from the HongkongBank and the cooperation
of the Wallacea Development Institute and British Ecosurvey Ltd,
the government embarked on a three-year ecological survey of
Buton and the Wakatobi islands to the east.
Poor coordination
The fertile, mountainous island of Buton is just one example
of how the poor coordination of government agencies has resulted
in a protected area being used for transmigration purposes.
The remaining forests exist on the sides of rough hills but
are relatively safe from nomadic farmers. They are home to a wide
range of bird species. Operation Wallacea has found almost 200
species on the fast developing island. As a comparison, the whole
of Sulawesi has 380 bird species, 96 of which are not found
anywhere else in the world.
Birds endemic to Sulawesi and easily found on Buton are the
Sulawesi Serpent Eagle, the Snoring Rail, the Grey-cheecked Green
Pigeon, the Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon, the White Imperial
Pigeon, the Cuckoo Dove, the Ornate Lorikeet, the Golden Mantled
Racquet-tail Parrot, the Sulawesi Hanging Parrot, the Bay Coucal,
the Purple-winged Roller, the Sulawesi Hornbill, the Red-knobbed
Hornbill, the Ashy Woodpecker and the Sulawesi Triller.
Buton also boasts cuscus, monkeys and Anoa, a small buffalo
endemic to Sulawesi.
Slash and burn
The highly diverse range of bird species can easily be seen or
heard from several observation points in Air Jatuh near Bau Bau,
Wakalambe village and Togomotonu Lake. At the lake alone,
scientists reportedly can identify more than 70 species in an
observation period of less than two hours.
Increasing population pressure has driven Buton's native semi-
nomadic farmers, most of whom are unaccustomed to modern farming
techniques, to illegally cut down forests for the agricultural
land.
The impact of the slash-and-burn farming is enormous. The
farmers usually cut down the trees in low land areas prior to the
rainy season. They leave the site denuded after harvest when they
think the soil is no longer fertile and move to cut trees
somewhere else.
The government's information campaigns aimed at improving
public awareness about conservation have fallen on the deaf ears
of hungry villagers. Some business interests, armed with official
licenses to harvest forests, often collaborate with local people
to take more than they are entitled to.
Control is slack because the government only has five forest
rangers to safeguard the regency's more than 70,000 hectares. Air
rifles are officially banned but officials admit that supervising
bird poachers and other hunters is difficult.
Many natives regard the forests as their heritage and feel
they have every right to exploit it. Hundreds of hectares of
mangroves have been felled to make way for brackish fishponds.
Aggravating the problem is the poor coordination among government
agencies concerning land use.
"The lack of coordination confuses everyone," said Rafiah, the
chief of Buton's suboffice for the conservation of natural
resources.
But the increasingly powerful role of environmentalists and
LIPI has significantly halted logging activities. In one
example, the transmigration office, at LIPI's request, has agreed
not to cut down 72 hectares of forest that serve as a water
source for Lake Togomotono and will look for an alternative site
for transmigrants.
Pressure
LIPI proposes that the lake be developed into an ecotourism
bird attraction. Heeding the conservationists' call, the
Southeast Sulawesi government has agreed to temporarily "divert"
resettlement of poor people from Java and other heavily populated
places to Kabaina Island, west of Buton.
Yet the future of conservation on Buton may not be as bright
as nature lovers would like.
The local government has earmarked an enormous portion of the
jungle for production and "conversion" forests. This policy
allows the government to exploit and convert the already
dwindling tropical forests into whatever project it deems
necessary.
"Increased economic activity is making it impossible to avoid
forest clearings for agricultural land and infrastructure
facilities," said a worrisome Asep S. Setiawan Adhikerana, a
senior ecologist at LIPI's center for research in biology.
One of the solutions proposed to avert the threat of
ecological disaster is to develop Buton into an ecotourism site,
which experts believe would help sustain the island's natural
resources.
Ecotourism is believed to be a good alternative because, in
principle, it would not alter the natural condition of the
landscape and still generate income.