Central Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. It is bordered by West Kalimantan to the west, South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan to the east, Java Sea to the south and is separated narrowly from North Kalimantan and Malaysia by East Kalimantan's Mahakam Ulu Regency. Its provincial capital is Palangka Raya and in 2010 its population was over 2.2 million, while the 2020 Census showed a total of almost 2.67 million; the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 2,774,747, and was projected to rise to 2,809,700 at mid 2024.
Peat swamp forests are tropical moist forests where waterlogged soil prevents dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing. Over time, this creates a thick layer of acidic peat. Large areas of these forests are being logged at high rates.
The Borneo peat swamp forests ecoregion, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, are on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Mount Palung National Park lies on the island of Borneo, in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, north of Ketapang and east of Sukadana.
The wildlife of Malaysia is diverse, with Malaysia being a megadiverse country. Most of the country is covered in rainforest, which hosts a huge diversity of plant and animal species. There are approximately 361 mammal species, 694 bird species, 250 reptile species, and 150 frog species found in Malaysia. Its large marine territory also holds a great diversity of life, with the country's coastal waters comprising part of the Coral Triangle.
Tropical peat is a type of histosol that is found in tropical latitudes, including South East Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. Tropical peat mostly consists of dead organic matter from trees instead of spaghnum which are commonly found in temperate peat. This soils usually contain high organic matter content, exceeding 75% with dry low bulk density around 0.2 mg/m3 (0.0 gr/cu ft).
The Mega Rice Project was initiated in 1996 in the southern sections of Kalimantan, the Indonesian section of Borneo. The goal was to turn one million hectares of unproductive and sparsely populated peat swamp forest into rice paddies in an effort to alleviate Indonesia's growing food shortage. The government made a large investment in constructing irrigation canals and removing trees. The project did not succeed, and was eventually abandoned after causing considerable damage to the environment.
Sabangau National Park is a national park in Central Kalimantan, a province of Indonesia in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo established in 2004. Between 1980 and 1995 the site was a massive logging concessions area. After 1995, the park became a site for illegal logging, which resulted in up to 85 percent of the 568,700-hectare total park area being destroyed. By 2012, less than 1 percent of the park's total area has been reforested and at the current rate, it will take several centuries to restore it to its pre-logged state.
The Leuser Ecosystem is an area of forest located in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Covering more than 2.6 million hectares it is one of the richest expanses of tropical rain forest in Southeast Asia and is the last place on earth where the Sumatran elephant, rhino, tiger and orangutan are found within one area. It has one of the world's richest yet least-known forest systems, and its vegetation is an important source of Earth's oxygen. Leuser also possesses more lowland rainforest than the rest of Sumatra combined and supports some of the last viable populations of tiger, rhino, orangutan and elephant. These, and many co-occurring species, are severely threatened by habitat destruction and poaching.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit non-governmental organization founded by Dr. Willie Smits in 1991 and dedicated to the conservation of the endangered Bornean orangutan and its habitat through the involvement of local people. It is audited by an external auditor company and operates under the formal agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to conserve and rehabilitate orangutans. The BOS Foundation manages orangutan rescue, rehabilitation and re-introduction programmes in East and Central Kalimantan. With more than 400 orangutans in its care and employing more than 440 people at a 10 sites BOS Foundation is the biggest non-human primate conservation non-governmental organization worldwide. Nyaru Menteng and Samboja Lestari are the BOS Foundation sites that have received most extensive media coverage. Nyaru Menteng, founded by Lone Drøscher Nielsen, has been the subject of a number of TV series, including Orangutan Diary, Orangutan Island and the series Orangutan Jungle School, airing since 2018.
The Borneo lowland rain forests is an ecoregion, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, of the large island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It supports approximately 15,000 plant species, 380 bird species and several mammal species. The Borneo lowland rain forests is diminishing due to logging, hunting and conversion to commercial land use.
Palm oil, produced from the oil palm, is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. It is locally used as cooking oil, exported for use in much commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area than soybeans, rapeseed or sunflowers.
The Lake Sentarum National Park is a national park protecting one of the world's most biodiverse lake systems, located in the heart of Borneo Island, Kapuas Hulu Regency, West Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. It lies in the upper Kapuas River tectonic basin some 700 kilometres upstream from the delta. The basin is a vast floodplain, consisting of about 20 seasonal lakes, freshwater swamp forest and peat swamp forest. Local people call it as Lebak lebung (floodplain). The National Park is located in the western part of this basin, where three-quarters of the seasonal lakes occur. Approximately half of the park consists of lakes, while the other half consists of freshwater swamp forest.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable palm oil products through global standards and multistakeholder governance. The seat of the association is in Zürich, Switzerland, while the secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur, with a satellite office in Jakarta. RSPO currently has 5,650 members from 94 countries.
The Orangutan Land Trust is a UK charity with the objective of providing sustainable solutions for the long-term survival of the orangutan in the wild by ensuring safe areas of forest for their continued existence. The organization's president and co-founder, Lone Drøscher Nielsen, is a prominent wildlife conservationist.
Deforestation in Borneo has taken place on an industrial scale since the 1960s. Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered by dense tropical and subtropical rainforests.
Infinite Earth is a Hong Kong–based project development company specializing in conservation. The company was created in 2008 with the goal of creating the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, a 64,500-hectare peat swamp in Central Kalimatan, Indonesia. Rimba Raya is the world's largest REDD+ project. The project works to eradicate deforestation, and promote conservation of local wildlife and sells carbon credits based on the carbon rich forest.
A peatland is a type of wetland whose soils consist of organic matter from decaying plants, forming layers of peat. Peatlands arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, due to water-logging and subsequent anoxia. Peatlands are unusual landforms that derive mostly from biological rather than physical processes, and can take on characteristic shapes and surface patterning.
Paludiculture is wet agriculture and forestry on peatlands. Paludiculture combines the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from drained peatlands through rewetting with continued land use and biomass production under wet conditions. “Paludi” comes from the Latin “palus” meaning “swamp, morass” and "paludiculture" as a concept was developed at Greifswald University. Paludiculture is a sustainable alternative to drainage-based agriculture, intended to maintain carbon storage in peatlands. This differentiates paludiculture from agriculture like rice paddies, which involve draining, and therefore degrading wetlands.
Due to its geographical and natural diversity, Indonesia is one of the countries most susceptible to the impacts of climate change. This is supported by the fact that Jakarta has been listed as the world's most vulnerable city, regarding climate change. It is also a major contributor as of the countries that has contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions due to its high rate of deforestation and reliance on coal power.
