WWF 11 Feb 12;
Jakarta, Indonesia - A new report released by WWF to commemorate the Heart of Borneo (HoB) Declaration’s 5th anniversary shines a positive light on the environmental status of this iconic 220,000 km2 landscape.
The Heart of Borneo Declaration, signed five years ago on February 12, 2007, committed the governments of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia to the conserve and sustainably develop the 22 Million hectare ‘Heart of Borneo’.
However until now, there was no baseline data from which to assess the environmental status of the region or monitor changes over time. That is about to change with a new report produced in consultation with a wide range of specialists and scientists who have been working on Borneo ecology for many years.
The new report: The Environmental Status of the Heart of Borneo, analyses the environmental health of the area via 13 key targets and more than 50 indicators. The targets include endangered animal species, such as the orang-utans, rhino and pygmy elephant and a selection of ecosystems such as lowland, heath and montane forests and river systems. Each key target has been given a rating of very good, good, fair or poor – depending on its current quality within the Heart of Borneo (HoB).
The good news
The good news overall, is that most forest types in the HoB are currently rated as good or very good. This is particularly important for lowland forest which is under severe threat across the rest of the island of Borneo. In fact, given that lowland forest is prime habitat for Pygmy elephant, orang-utan and Rhino, the HoB may be the last stronghold for the preservation of this type of forest on Borneo.
The bad news
The bad news is that the HoB still remains under serious threat from industrial conversion of natural forest to palm oil and other agricultural crops, as well as illegal logging and unsustainable rates of legal timber extraction. Forest fire, mining and over hunting of wildlife are also major threats which future versions of this report will serve to monitor.
The report was released by WWF’s Heart of Borneo Initiative. Its team leader, Adam Tomasek, highlighted the significance of the report.
“For the first time the environmental health of the HoB has been assessed using a series of scientifically derived biological and ecosystem indicators and the results have indicated the HoB is currently in good health,” he said.
“Just as importantly, now for the first time, the three HoB governments and key stakeholders will have a credible and easy to use tool to monitor progress in terms of improvements or degradation in key natural health measures for the HoB. It is a management tool which can be used to improve decision making on the sustainable use and conservation of this globally iconic landscape,” he said.
WWF encourages the three governments of Borneo to use the report to raise awareness of the high conservation values of the HoB and the major threats to its continued survival as an area of globally significant biodiversity.
The report was written by WWF Indonesia’s field biologist, Stephen Wulffraat with funding from the Sall Family Foundation via WWF US.
'Heart Of Borneo,' Last Stronghold Of Lowland Forest, Says Report
Bernama 11 Feb 12;
KUCHING, Feb 11 (Bernama) -- The Heart of Borneo (HoB), which straddles the transboundary highlands of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, may be the last stronghold for the preservation of lowland forest in Borneo, said a report released by World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia)'s Heart of Borneo Initiative.
Its team leader Adam Tomasek said today based on the the new report titled "The Environmental Status of the Heart of Borneo", the good news overall was that most forest types in the HoB were currently rated as good or very good.
"This is particularly important for lowland forest which is under severe threat across the rest of the island of Borneo, especially as it is prime habitat for the pygmy elephant, orang utan and rhino," he said in a statement here.
However, he said, the HoB still remained under serious threat from industrial conversion of natural forest for oil palm cultivation and other agricultural crops as well as illegal logging and unsustainable rates of legal timber extraction.
Forest fires, mining and over hunting of wildlife were also major threats which future versions of the report would serve to monitor, said Adam in highlighting the significance of the report, which analysed the environmental health of the area via 13 key targets and more than 50 scientifically derived biological and ecosystem indicators.
The targets included endangered animal species, such as the orang utan, rhino and pygmy elephant and a selection of ecosystems, including lowland, heath and montane forests and river systems, with each key target being given a rating of very good, good, fair or poor - depending on its current quality within the HoB.
The report was released by WWF to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the HoB's Declaration, which committed the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia to conserve and sustainably develop the iconic 22 million hectare or 220,000 km sq 'Heart of Borneo'.
It was written by WWF Indonesia's field biologist, Stephen Wulffraat with funding from the Sall Family Foundation via WWF United States in consultation with a wide range of specialists and scientists who have been working on Borneo ecology for many years.
Signed on February 12, 2007, the declaration is supported under important regional and international agreements such as Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD).
-- BERNAMA
Kalimantan’s forests are doing OK: NGO
Elly Burhaini Faizal,The Jakarta Post 17 Feb 12;
The Heart of Borneo is doing well, despite the usual threats from extractive activities and fires, according to environmental activists.
The famed forested area spans 22 million hectares in Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia on Kalimantan Island, also known as Borneo.
Adam Tomasek, the leader of the Heart of Borneo Initiative, said on Thursday that deforestation and forest degradation remained a serious issue in Indonesia and Kalimantan.
“This is not at all to say that the threats from forest conversion, deforestation and forest degradation in the area have disappeared. They are still real threats,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
In a recently released report, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia said that most types of forest in the Heart of Borneo were in good or very good condition, although several areas were under threat from businesses.
Illegal logging, an excessive rate of legal timber extraction, forest fires, mining and excessive wildlife hunting posed additional threats, the report said.
However, Tomasek said that political commitments to conserve and to develop the area in a sustainable way had been made over the past five years, such as by the issuance of Presidential Regulation No. 3/2012 on Spatial Planning in Kalimantan.
“It was the first time that the government developed a special plan for the whole of Kalimantan, and not just for one province or district. This was one spatial plan for the entire island,” Tomasek said.
A working group comprising the Coordinating Economic Minister and the Agriculture, Defense, Environment, Foreign, Forestry, Home and Public Works Ministers was given a mandate to realize the Heart of Borneo Declaration, which Indonesia signed in 2007.
“With commitments at both the national and district level, we are starting to see that the issue of illegal logging in some parts, but not all parts, of the Heart of Borneo has disappeared,” Tomasek said before adding a somber assessment.
“Without provincial and district engagement, I don’t think we’ll see much progress.”
Under the spatial planning regulation signed on Jan. 5, the government will allocate 45 percent of Kalimantan to serve as the “lungs of the world”.
Separately, Indonesian Environmental Forum (Wahli) executive director Berry Nahdian Furqon warned that the spatial regulation might trigger new conflicts due to its centralized approach.
“The government did not make a comprehensive study. Neither did it consult with the local people,” Berry said, adding that regulation provided no specific information on the government’s proposed spatial plans or conservation programs.
Moreover, Berry said, many conservation areas in Kalimantan were no longer forested areas. “Only forests in the Meratus mountains in South Kalimantan are still well conserved while the rest have overlapping land use with industrial activities, such as palm oil plantations and mining,” he said.
Tomasek said the report analyzed the environmental health of the area by evaluating progress against 13 key targets using more than 50 indicators.
“What we found is that the Heart of Borneo is doing quite well,” he said.
“It’s a huge area, very remote, very diverse in terms of its forest types, fresh water ecosystem and peatlands and biodiversity,” he said.
The Heart of Borneo comprised some of Kalimantan’s best remaining lowland forests, Tomasek said. “The lowland tropical rain forest is extremely important, as it is a biodiverse area where you can find more species per meter than any other ecosystem,” he said.
