RAINFOREST
Environment
Forests play a key role in regulating the global climate seeing that more than one-third of the total Co2 reductions required to keep global warming below 2°C comes from them.
When mass deforestation happens, regional temperatures rise, which leads to drying and forest fires as seen in Brazil, California, Indonesia, Australia and the Congo Basin.
The Borneo rainforest is 130 million years old, making it one of the oldest rainforests in the world and 70 million years older than the Amazon rainforest.
Borneo is very rich in biodiversity compared to many other areas.
There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees, 221 species of mammals and 420 species of birds.
Subject to mass deforestation, the remaining Borneo rainforest is one of the only remaining natural habitat for the endangered Bornean Orangutan.
It is also an important refuge for many endemic forest species, as the Asian Elephant, the Sumatran Rhinoceros, the Bornean Clouded Leopard, and the Dayak Fruit Bat
RAINFOREST. East Kalimantan. (Indonesian Borneo)
East Kalimantan is an Indonesian province on the island of Kalimantan spanning an area of just under 50,000 square miles, over half of which is covered by 18 million acres of tropical forest. It is one of Indonesia’s wealthiest provinces, both ecologically and economically, but the region is grappling with a 30-year legacy of forest depletion and degradation caused by logging, palm oil production and mining, further exacerbated by raging forest fires.
The loss of East Kalimantan’s forest is a threat to its economic stability, the peace and prosperity of its population, and its extraordinary biodiversity – which includes 5% of the world’s remaining wild orangutan.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
Undisturbed lowland primary forest in Kutai, East Kalimantan is usually distinguished by dominance of dipterocarp species in number of individuals, in basal area and by their emergence to more than 50 m in height. Forests in most lowland concession areas have been logged selectively and suffered from surface forest fires at least twice since 1970. Canopy height and dominance levels have decreased in proportion to extent and frequency of disturbances by logging and fires but the area of pioneer species has increased proportionally with degradation. Secondary forest species or pyrophytic trees have become dominant in all forest lands. Forest degradation in lowland Kutai is more serious than where forest has had only commercial logging. Rehabilitation methods should be tailored to existing forest structures; e.g., natural regeneration is most appropriate in forest dominated by primary species, and enrichment by patch planting in gap sites in forest with few mother trees. Macaranga forest or pyrophytic shrub forest should be artificially planted. This paper focuses on planting dipterocarps. Generally single species plantations of dipterocarps should be avoided, except for a few species e.g. Dryobalanops aromatica and Shorea robusta. When dipterocarps are used, the key to success for successful dipterocarp planting is light control and species choice. Light control should correspond to the light requirements of a species during its growing stages, so planting methods should reflect site conditions and growth characteristics of the species. These characteristics vary widely among dipterocarp species. Degraded forest types in East Kalimantan and rehabilitation measures for them are reviewed.
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COAL on the MAHAKAM River
The Sultanate of Kutai Kartanegara ruled over most of the Mahakam River basin from its establishment in 1300 AD. Then came waves of disruption in the form of the Dutch, independence, and trans-migration. There is still a Sultan at the palace in Tenggarong – but nowadays on the Mahakam, coal is king.
For over a hundred years, the third longest river in Indonesia and its surrounding ecosystems have been concessioned off to the extractive industry. Different parts of the Mahakam River in Kalimantan have been mapped, monetized and assigned different extractive purposes: logging, mining, industry, settlement, and many others. From 2009 to 2013, the Mahakam watershed lost 128 thousand of hectares of its natural forest due to wood extraction, mining, and wide scale plantations.
Every day, rafts carrying logs from pristine forests travel along the Mahakam towards processing plants while lines of barges transport timber and coal so it can be shipped to other parts of the country, Asia and Europe. These activities can be traced back to colonial days and have grown massively and systematically since Indonesia’s independence. Alongside the gas and mining industry, logging activities became the main income course under the authoritarian Suharto regime and his cronies from 1965 to 1998.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
There ís a lot of traffic on the Mahakam which is still, despite construction of lots of roads, a major highway into ‘The Interior’. And a lot of that traffic consists of coal barges.
Huge floating steel trays, each one hauled behind a large tugboat. Full barges, low in the water, heading downstream, and empty ones returning back upstream to be refilled.
The mining companies truck the coal to the river, where it gets crushed, stockpiled, and then loaded onto the barges.
These barges are big. Upriver (upstream of the Mahakam Lakes) they can ‘only’ manage a load of 5000 tonnes, but the downstream barges may carry 7-8,000 tonnes of coal.
The content of each barge gets loaded onto ocean-going freighters – near the river mouth, at offshore transfer stations, or at the port down here in Balikpapan. Some even gets towed across the Java Sea to Surabaya for local (Indonesian) use, but most is exported – primarily to China, India, Japan and Korea.
The river flows through Samarinda City, a trading port since the 1700s, which grew hand in hand with the extractive industry. Samarinda’s local administration has allocated more than 70 percent of the municipalities’ land for mining. The deforestation and soil erosion first from the logging industry and now from the coal industry’s digging of the soil, have caused substantial erosion and sedimentation of the river, leading to a dramatic increase in flooding. From November 2008 to June 2020, floods inundated almost every corner of the city, covering the main roads and interrupting economic activities, including public transportation and markets which consist mainly of women vendors. About 50,000 people have been affected by five to six major floods every year.
Coal mining is affecting families’ livelihoods and health, as flooding increases food prices and destroys houses, placing a heavier burden on women’s economic and domestic work. Mining has also displaced agriculture-dependent families from their lands and led to the death of children drowning in abandoned coal pits, of which there are more than 200 in the area. When mothers demand justice from the government and mining companies, they are subject to intimidation.
Palm OIl
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil. In 2016, Indonesia produced 34.5 million tonnes of palm oil and exported 25.1 million tonnes. The total planted area of oil palm is estimated to be around 12 million hectares and is projected to reach 13 million hectares by 2020.
The Indonesian palm oil industry is dominated by large-scale private enterprises and smallholders, with government-schemes only playing a modest role. Private enterprises produce roughly half of the palm oil and smallholders produce around 40%.
Major ecological threats from palm oil plantations are deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions resulting from land use change and forest fires. The disregard of indigenous rights by the palm oil production sector is also an area of high concern.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
As of 2021, the expansion of oil palm plantation has caused adverse impacts on the ecosystem. It has been associated with deforestation, biodiversity loss, disturbances to environmental services and livelihood change. The government of Indonesia has made an effort to control the negative effects by issuing relevant policies. One of the policies is Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)’s sustainability standards to which large-scale plantations and smallholders are obliged to adhere.
In 2022 the Indonesian government have started to revoke many concessions to Palm oil large companies but still may remain especially in the North eastern part of the state amond the Punan Batu tribes. (see in preparation 2023)
DEFORESTATION
Deforestation in Borneo has taken place on an industrial scale since the 1960s.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the forests of Borneo were leveled at a rate unprecedented in human history, burned, logged and cleared, and commonly replaced with agriculture. The deforestation continued through the 2000s at a slower pace, alongside the expansion of palm oil plantations. Half of the annual global tropical timber procurement is from Borneo. Palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Much of the forest clearance is illegal.
As well as Borneo’s importance in biodiversity conservation and as a carbon sink , the forests have significance for water security and food security for local communities of indigenous people.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
Logging (along with coal mining) is still the major industry up-river. The trees are usually felled some distance from the river, and brought by truck down rough forestry tracks to the river. There is no road to the mills in Samarinda, hundreds of kilometres downstream, so the logs are transported down the river.
ENERGY IN INDONESIA
Despite the country’s efforts to convert to more sustainable sources of energy, petroleum remains the backbone of energy provision in Indonesia, a country populated by 240 million people. Not only is the burning of fossil fuels a source of CO2 emissions, its exploration and exploitation are capital-intensive, a challenge for the country, and exposes communities and ecosystems to the risk of accidents like the Balikpapan oil spill in March 2018 to occur.
Pertamina produces about 800,000 to 1 million barrels of crude oil daily, leaving a 200-400,000 barrels gap to be imported. The spill in Balikpapan, the cost of which has been estimated in a decrease in oil supply of 200,000 barrels a day, is causing the gap to widen even further.
The worst cases of oil spills happened even with leading oil companies in the world, suggesting that even best industry practices aren’t a guarantee that incidents won’t occur.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
JAKARTA
Jakarta is one of the world’s most overpopulated cities. Its greater metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million residents.
The sprawling megapolis sinks about six centimetres a year due to the excessive extraction of groundwater for its residents, according to a 2021 study by Indonesia’s Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology. This makes it one of the fastest sinking cities on Earth.
The phenomenon has been exacerbated by the rising Java Sea due to climate change.
A quarter of the capital’s area will be completely submerged by 2050 if urgent measures aren’t taken, the National Research and Innovation Agency said.
Researchers also believe water supplies may dry up for many in Jakarta and wider Java if Indonesia does not relieve pressure on resources.
“Jakarta and Java Island are heading towards a clean water crisis. We projected the crisis might happen in 2050,” earth scientist Andreas said, blaming rapid population and industrial growth.
“When the population explodes, the poor sanitation will get worse, pollutants will contaminate the rivers and shallow groundwater, rendering them unusable,” he added.
Pollution from Jakarta’s traffic-choked roads and the absence of a rubbish collection system – forcing many to burn their trash – has also produced air quality that at times rivals New Delhi and Beijing.
The city’s streets are so clogged that it is estimated congestion costs the economy €4.3 billion a year.
With more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia is the largest archipelagic nation on earth. But 56 per cent of its population and most of its economy are concentrated in Jakarta and the wider Java Island, which is home to more than half of the country’s 270 million people.
By comparison, East Kalimantan province – where the new capital Nusantara (an old Javanese term meaning ‘archipelago’) is being built – has fewer than four million people.
Another reason for the capital relocation cited by the government is disaster mitigation.
See in preparation
NUSANTARA
Located in eastern Borneo—the world’s third-largest island—Nusantara is set to replace sinking and polluted Jakarta as Indonesia’s political centre by late 2024.
But the two-hour drive from Balikpapan city to the sweeping green expanse of Nusantara’s “Point Zero” reveals the scale of the new capital’s potential impact on a biodiverse area that is home to thousands of animal and plant species.
With construction set to ramp up this year, environmentalists warn building a metropolis will speed up deforestation in one of the world’s largest and oldest stretches of tropical rainforest, estimated to be more than 100 million years old.
“It’s going to be a massive ecological disaster,” Uli Arta Siagian, forest campaigner for environmental group Walhi, told AFP.
Environmental groups warn of an ecological disaster but architect Sofian Sibarani says the new Indonesian capital Nusantara will rise out of the forest rather than replace it.
The relocation to the 2,560-square-kilometre (990-square-mile) area follows capital moves by Brazil to Brasilia—considered an urban utopia failure—and Myanmar to the ghost town of Naypyidaw.
Drastic changes to the land’s topography and the man-made disasters that could follow “will be severe and far more difficult to mitigate compared to natural disasters”, said Siagian.