INDONESIA/ KALIMANTAN
Indonesian Borneo
Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago with almost 18,000 islands spreading between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. It’s a hotspot of world diversity, home to hundreds of distinct cultures and over 3,000 animal species (including Komodo dragons, Sumatran tigers and orangutans). Along with this, Indonesia also houses the largest rainforest in all of Asia.
Kalimantan or Indonesian Borneo , is the third largest island in the world.
Home to the world’s oldest tropical rainforests, Borneo is still among the planet’s most biologically diverse ecosystems and is still home to thousands of endemic animal, reptile, insect and plant species including orangutans, rhinos, hornbills, macaques and gibbons to name just a few not to forget the mysterious Black Orchid endemic to the island
Ourangutang. Kutai National forest
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
Bornean orangutan populations have declined by more than 50% over the past 60 years, and the species’ habitat has been reduced by at least 55% over the past 20 years.
The Bornean orangutan differs in appearance from the Sumatran orangutan, with a broader face and shorter beard and also slightly darker in color.
Orangutans are elusive.
They spend their days mostly alone, high in the treetops. The vast majority of them are found in the lush rainforests of Borneo.
Orangutans weigh up to about 180 pounds and live up to 55 years in the wild.
One of our closest living relatives, they are the most solitary of the great apes, spending almost all of their time in trees. Orangutans in Borneo also spend some time on the ground. Deforestation linked to logging, the production of palm oil and paper pulp, and hunting all pose threats to orangutans, whose populations have plummeted in recent decades.
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Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
KUTAI NATIONAL PARK
Kutai National Park is a lowland national park found in the east coast of the Borneo Island, ranging approximately 10 to 50 kilometers north of the equator and in the north of the Mahakam River including lakes Danau Maau, Santan, Besar and Sirapa.
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
Kutai National Park is dominated by Dipterocarpaceae lowland tropical rainforest and serves as home to 958 species of flora – including eight of the world’s nine genus of Dipterocarpaceae family, 41 species of orchids and 220 species of medicinal plants. Other vegetation types found in Kutai National Park include coastal mangrove forest, freshwater swamp forest, and kerangas forest.
Kutai National Park provides habitat to ten species of primates such as the orangutan, maroon leaf monkey, white – fronted leaf-monkey, probosci’s monkey, and Bornean gibbon. 90 species of mammals, such as the Malayan sun bear, sambar deer, banteng, clouded leopard, black flying squirrel, marbled cat, flat – headed cat, otter civet, smooth-coated otter, and yellow – throated marten; and 300 species of birds such as the Hornbill.
In recent studies, the number of Orangutans in the area was found to have been decreasing, however, a study conducted in 2010 identified more than 2, 000 orangutans to be dwelling in the Kutai National Park.
Biodiversity
Borneo island consists of 15,000 plant species, and more than 1,400 amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and insects.
Borneo covers an area of 743,330 square kilometers (287,000 square miles) with different biomes.
Biomes refer to the major ecological community, which is predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment, in this case biome is tropical rainforest.
Borneo forests are some of the most biodiverse on the planet and with ideal climate to contain organisms. Some of the forests in Borneo are Tropical rainforest mangroves swamp forests, peat swamp forests, montane forests, heath forests and dipterocarp forests.
These physically diverse habitat provide different conditions for different organisms to live. Therefore, the biodiversity is increasing as the organisms have found their own favorite habitat to live.
TREES
GENERAL FLORISTIC DIVERSITY OF KALIMANTAN Lowland forest
The area where lowland forest occurs refers usually to the area below 700 m above sea level, and does not include specific habitats like kerangas forest, swamp forest, coastal forest and mangrove forest. Most of the Kalimantan forests are in this category, where the Dipterocarp species may be dominant. In many cases, the dominance of the Dipterocarpaceae in the area is related to their trunk or bole sizes, which is usually very large. It is different from the family of Euphorbiaceae, which is also very often dominant, but the dominance is related to the higher number of genera and species found.
Nine genera of Dipterocarpaceae are found in Kalimantan. They are Shorea, Anisoptera, Parashorea, Dipterocarpus, Cotylelobium, Dryobalanops, Hopea, Vatica and Upuna. From the 10 genera of the Malaysian Dipterocarps, only Neobalanocarpus has not been recorded from Borneo so far. This species occurs in Thailand and in Peninsular Malaysia.
As the most suitable habitat, it is well known that the lowland forests consist of the highest diversity of plants, especially trees.
The most durable timber species “iron wood” (Eusideroxylon zwageri) is mostly adapted to flat lands along rivers, sometimes dominant, and it is extremely slow growing. Sidiyasa (1995) found this species was also growing well on undulating areas in Sintang, West Kalimantan.
Other common and important tree species in lowland primary forests in Kalimantan are Koompassia excelsa, Pometia pinnata, Dracontomelon dao, Durio spp., Artocarpus spp., and Dialium spp., These species, except Koompassia excelsa, are important and well known because of their fruits, which are edible. Sindora spp. and Palaquium spp. are known for their timber quality. Pometia pinnata and Dracontomelon dao are some of the trees which usually grow along the rivers and small tributarys. Pometia pinnata especi
MAHAKAM River
The Mahakam River (Indonesian: Sungai Mahakam) is third longest and volume discharge river in Borneo after Kapuas River and Barito River, it is located in Kalimantan, Indonesia. It flows 980 kilometers (610 miles) from the district of Long Apari in the highlands of Borneo, to its mouth at the Makassar Strait. The city of Samarinda, the provincial capital of East Kalimantan, lies along 48 kilometers (30 mi) from the river mouth. The delta Mahakam river consist of specific micro climate which is influenced by high and low tide at sea level.
The Mahakam River runs for just under 1000km from the Muller Mountains in the ‘Heart of Borneo’ southeast to the provincial capital of East Kalimantan (Samarinda) and the coastal delta, eventually discharging into the Makassar Strait.
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
Kutai National Park
East Kalimantan. Indonesian Borneo/
2022
4K
Reel Duration: 9’38
MANGROVES
Mangroves are found in estuaries and coastal regions. These are estimated to cover around 1 million hectares in Borneo, a small fraction of their original extent due to conversion for agriculture.
Peat swamp forests are the dominant form of remaining lowland forest in Borneo today. These swamp forests appear in places where dead vegetation becomes waterlogged and, too wet to decompose, accumulates as peat.
Tropical peatlands, which form over hundreds of years, are giant stores of carbon. Draining and/or burning these areas releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Drained peatlands are also highly susceptible to combustion. Under dry el Niño conditions, which affect Southeast Asia periodically, thousands of fires can burn across Kalimantan, causing large-scale air pollution known regionally as “haze”.
Lake Sembuluh
There are about 76 lakes spread in the Mahakam river basin and about 30 lakes are located in the middle Mahakam area including the three main lakes (Lake Jempang 15,000 Ha; Lake Semayang 13,000 Ha; Lake Melintang 11,000 Ha). The lakes levels are seasonally fluctuated from 0.5 m – 1 m during dry period to seven meters during rainy season. The Mahakam lakes and surrounding wetlands act as water storage as well as a trap of sediment contained in the water flowing into the lakes which are now known to become shallower, presumably as a result of an imbalance between sediment input and slow subsidence.
Fishing is the primary source of livelihood in the Mahakam lakes area, most of the people around the lakes are fishermen. The middle Mahakam lake area is an area of intensive fishing activity with a productivity of 25,000 to 35,000 metric tons per year since 1970.