East Kalimantan porpoises face threat of extinction

East Kalimantan porpoises face threat of extinction

By Iskandar Zulkarnaen

SAMARINDA, East Kalimantan (Antara): In the 1970s, Mahakam
river was a big attraction for locals wanting to watch schools of
playful porpoises (Orcaella brevirostris).

In the late afternoon, when weather was fine, people would
gather at the river bank waiting for the big animals to proceed
down the river with only their shiny black backs showing on the
surface of the water.

Locals call them "fish" (ikan pesut Mahakam), even though the
animals are in fact mammals.

Such exotic sights have become a thing of the past because the
porpoise has become highly endangered due to increasing
industrial pollution.

Many children under five years of age living beside the river
have never seen one of the creatures. For many of them, porpoises
are part of their bedtime stories. As if to remind people what a
porpoise looks like, the provincial government has built a large
porpoise statue in front of the gubernatorial office, which
happens to be located near the Mahakam river.

The monument has become a popular recreational site for
children in the town. Parents will explain to their children
everything they can recall about porpoises.

A recent study by the local Agency for Natural Resources
Conservation estimates the number of porpoises in the Mahakam
river at 100.

The species are known to exist only in three major rivers in
the world: the Mahakam, the Irawady in Myanmar and the Amazon in
Brazil. Porpoises like living in groups of three to five at a
depth of between five to 18 meters in fresh water.

The fast dwindling population of porpoises has drawn the
concern of environmentalists. Mahakam River and Lakes Society
(Marilas), for example, has proposed that porpoises be bred in
enclosures and then released.

Marilas chairman Chandradewana Boer said in a recent seminar
in Samarinda that the local Botanical Gardens and Lempake
Educational Forest of Samarinda provided good places for breeding
purposes. The gardens have a six-hectare lake with a depth of
five meters.

"The Mahakam porpoises are increasingly endangered due to the
rapid degradation of their habitat," Boer said.

A breeding ground would not only provide a safe haven for the
animals, but would also make a good place to conduct scientific
studies. Additionally, the breeding places would provide a
recreational spot, he said.

The 300-hectare botanical gardens and Lempake Educational
Forest lie in the same area, about 30 kilometers north of
Samarinda.

Marilas has found conditions in the botanical garden's lake
"ideal" for porpoises, which usually deliver only one offspring
after a 14-month pregnancy.

The lake holds water from a number of creeks in the jungle and
it discharges excess water to Karang Mumus river, which surrounds
Samarinda.

Situated in a limestone area, the lake is said to be able to
hold water for a long period of time, and can therefore withstand
a reasonably prolonged dry season as occurred from the middle of
1997 till the beginning of 1998.

According to Boer, the lake could be divided into a feeding
ground, play area and resting ground for the porpoises.

If the breeding plan materialized, the area would
substantially add to the attraction of the forest as an
ecotourism site in East Kalimantan. The Lempake forest is home to
various mammals such as orangutans, proboscis monkeys and deer.
Reptiles such as pythons and crocodiles, as well as a host of
bird species are also commonplace.

Porpoises have been successfully bred at Ancol Dreamland in
Jakarta.

The idea to breed porpoise in East Kalimantan has received a
positive response from Awang Farouk Ishak, chief of the
provincial office overseeing environmental impact control.

"Porpoises in Mahakam river, Semayang lake and Jempang lake
are critically endangered because of the presence of sawmill and
coal factories in the hinterland," he said.

The factories dump their industrial waste into the river
without properly treating the waste.

Environmentalists have also attributed the dwindling porpoise
population and declining fish and prawn catches in Mahakam to
overfishing by locals.

Continuing industrial and forestry activities have also
worsened the situation, as major rivers and lakes in East
Kalimantan undergo rapid siltation.

The provincial environmental impact control agency found that
coal factories in the hinterland contributed 99.5 percent of
industrial waste pollution in the province. The plants dumped
annually an estimated 84.6 tons of liquid waste into the rivers.

Along the Mahakam river there are several coal, wood sawmill,
paper and glue factories.

The unchecked logging and opening of new plantations have
resulted in widespread erosion and caused siltation in Mahakam
river, which is 400 meters wide and 900 kilometers long.

The same thing has happened to three major lakes that become
the natural habitat of porpoises: the 15,000 hectare Jempang
lake, the 13,000 hectare Semayang lake and 11,000 hectare
Malintang lake.

When a prolonged dry spell hit East Kalimantan between 1997
and 1998, five porpoises lived an increasingly hard life in the
shallow Semayang lake. The local government were quick to come to
the rescue and the animals were saved.

Following the 1998 dry spell, the provincial government has
held a series of seminars on how to save the porpoises, but no
concrete action has been taken.

Unless the government and the public do something, East
Kalimantan people will have to go to Jakarta to see porpoises,
which have become the East Kalimantan province's mascot.