WWF wants Kalimantan reserve protected
JAKARTA (JP): The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is urging the government to designate 400,000 hectares of pristine lowland tropical forest in East Kalimantan as a conservation area.
The tract is located in Bulungan regency on the northeastern tip of the province, about 500 kilometers north of the capital Samarinda. The WWF believes the biodiversity-rich area could become "one of the most important reserves in Asia, on par with Gunung Leuser in Sumatra, and Lorentz in Irian Jaya".
"It is very urgent for the gazettment of the reserve right now," WWF ecologist Frank Momberg told The Jakarta Post here Monday after announcing the proposal. Also present were WWF Indonesia Executive Director Agus Purnomo and British ecologist Paul Jepson.
The WWF team said it had discussed the proposal with the Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution, who is in charge of natural conservation in the country, and termed the latter's response "very positive".
"The minister agreed to establish the new Sebuku-Sembakung Conservation Area in East Kalimantan, Bulungan (regency), and asked the Dirjen PHPA (Director General for Forest Protection and Nature Conservation) to prepare the proposal," according to minutes of the meeting between the team and Muslimin last week.
The WWF made the minutes available to the media.
Momberg also said the WWF was "very optimistic" because Muslimin gave his commitment "to stop all forest conversion" within the proposed reserve.
Several companies linked to former president Soeharto had applied for permits to exploit the areas.
"He (Muslimin) wants to issue a ministerial decree for the area as a conservation area, possibly as a national park or a wildlife reserve," said Momberg, a project executive for Bioregional Planning and Integrated Park Management.
Environmentalists have warned that little primary lowland forest in Kalimantan remains in good condition, especially after more than three million hectares were destroyed in forest fires earlier this year.
Momberg argued that industrial plantation firms should limit their activities to burned areas and leave pristine land alone.
"There is no justification for converting healthy natural forest to oil palm and industrial plantations when there's so much fire-damaged forest land and nonforest land now available for this purpose."
The WWF also noted that a few Dayak tribespeople and elephants live in the proposed conservation area.
"(Elephant) footprints and dung were observed in July along a tributary of the Sebuku River in Bulungan regency. A population of 5,000 elephants survives in the Malaysian state of Sabah, but prior to these observations biologists were unsure whether this population extended into Indonesian Borneo," the WWF said in its media release.
It said international conservation strategies had identified the Sebuku and Sembakung watersheds as critical areas for the survival of Borneo's rich flora and fauna.
A WWF team comprised of Momberg and Jepson also confirmed the presence of other endangered wildlife in the area, including the ox called banteng (Bos Javanicus), orangutan (Pongo Pygmaeus) and proboscis monkey, known locally as Kera Bekantan. (aan)