MODIS Witnesses Deforestation in Borneo: Agricultural fires rage

The skies over Indonesian Borneo is filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set deliberately to clear indigenous forest areas for subsistence farmland and illegal logging. 

A shroud of thick, gray smoke hangs over the area when the Aqua satellite captured this image on Sept. 25, 2014. 

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (locations outlined in red) across the entire region from Central Borneo to South Borneo and even on East Laut Island. 

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team.

The skies over Indonesian Borneo are filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set deliberately to clear indigenous forest areas for subsistence farmland and illegal logging.

A shroud of thick, gray smoke hung over the area when the Aqua satellite captured this image on September 25, 2014.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (locations outlined in red) across the entire region from Central Borneo to South Borneo and even on East Laut Island.

Widespread burning in lowland forests on Borneo is an annual, man-made occurrence.

People use fires to manage and create agricultural lands, including large palm tree plantations that supply palm oil for biodiesel fuel; others are set accidentally during illegal exploitation and logging.

Lowland tropical forests are underlain by a swampy layer of peat that can be up to 20 meters (66 feet) thick.

During the rainy season, when the peat is waterlogged, leaves and other organic matter in the soil don't decay; when the peat dries out, it becomes flammable.

Burning peat generates huge amounts of smoke as is evident in this satellite image. These fires contribute significantly to annual greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials.

All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter (PM or soot).

Smoke can contain many different chemicals, including aldehydes, acid gases, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, toluene, styrene, metals and dioxins.

Human's exposure to adverse air quality and smoke should be limited as it can cause severe respiratory ailments.

ESA Envisat Image: Indonesian Volcanic Islands

The tropical islands of Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa tower above the waves in this image from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

All three islands are volcanoes, part of the Sunda Arc.

This image is a compilation of three passes by Envisat on June 20, Aug. 19 and Dec. 17, 2011.

CREDIT: European Space Agency

The tropical islands of Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa tower above the waves in this image from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

The island on the west, or left side of the picture, is Bali, one of Indonesia's main tourist destinations.

The island's central mountains include peaks that reach 9,800 feet (3,000 meters), including an active volcano on the right side of the island.

The central island is Lombok. To the east is Sumbawa island, dominated by mountainous terrain and home to Mount Tambora, an active volcano.

Mount Tambora's last major eruption was in 1815, killing more than 70,000 people and cooling much of the Northern Hemisphere, causing "the year without a summer."

The eruption is one of the biggest and deadliest in recorded history.

All three islands sit over the submarine Java trench, where one tectonic plate slides under another.

As the plate descends into Earth's mantle, fluids from the crust move into the mantle rock, letting it melt more easily, and the melted rock rises upwards like lava lamp blobs.

These lava blobs punch through the crust, forming volcanoes.

ESA IDRISI: Protecting the heart of Borneo

Forest cover loss and forest degradation under Business as Usual scenario 2020, calculated using the IDRISI Land Change Modeller and spatial analysis.

Credits: Hatfield Consultants

In Southeast Asia, the island of Borneo is home to one of the world’s most diverse rainforests, but its natural resources are under threat.

Information from satellites is being used to evaluate the impact of the island’s future development.

The mountainous island is the third largest in the world.

It is an area of exceptional biological diversity and its natural resources have tremendous social and economic value at local, national and global levels.

While still of great importance, these resources have diminished in recent years due to logging, plantation development, mining and forest fires.

“The ecosystems in the heart of Borneo provide many local, regional and global services and benefits,” said Anna van Paddenburg, Sustainable Financing and Policy Strategy Leader for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia.

“The mountainous forests form the headwaters of most of Borneo’s 20 major rivers, providing water for agriculture, human consumption, and industry. 

“The forests provide timber and non-timber forest products, and store huge amounts of carbon.

“The diverse ecosystems support endemic plants and animals, which supports eco-tourism and pharmaceutical research.”

While it is widely recognised that healthy ecosystems provide services that play a critical role in maintaining individual and societal welfare, the benefits that flow from them are not always accounted for in government and private sector decision-making.

In an effort to protect the environment and develop the area in a sustainable way, the Heart of Borneo conservation agreement was initiated by WWF and signed by the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei in 2007.

In December 2010, WWF initiated an assessment of Borneo’s natural capital to quantify and understand the value of ecosystem services and benefits.

ESA provided technical assistance through Hatfield Consultants, a Canadian environmental and geomatics consulting company that has been working in Indonesia for 20 years, and NEO BV, a value-adding data provider.

Read more here

Also visit one amazing individual's conservation efforts, saving gibbons and other endangered species, in neighbouring Indonesia: www.kalaweit.com

Kalaweit Sanctuary, Borneo: Live Crocodile Rescue Video

En Juin 2009, le sorcier du village Tumbang Samba donnait son crocodile (élevé pendant 17 ans), à Kalaweit… La réception de ce reptile par Kalaweit avait été vécue comme un symbole par les habitants de cette localité, car ce crocodile était connu de tous...

Aujourd’hui le sorcier et sa famille portent le message de Kalaweit. Hier nous avons récupéré un gibbon (« Robin »), à Tumbang Samba, sauvé grâce au soutien de ce vieil homme et de sa famille.



For more information on Chanee's excellent work go to his blog here

Phobaeticus Chani, a newly discovered stick insect in Borneo jungle

A Phobaeticus Chani, a stick insect which is more than half a metre long, one of dozens of new species recently discovered in a stretch of "irreplaceable" rainforest on the island of Borneo

I also have to introduce little Noah, the gibbon and to recommend that you check out his amazing story at Chanee's blog.

Chanee Kalaweit is the remarkable man that runs the Gibbon sanctuary in Borneo

He is supported by the Brigitte Bardot animal foundation to name but a few but the gibbon sanctuary needs all the support they can get.

It's an uplifting story of successful conservation, through one man's determination and commitment.
Picture: WWF / PA

Bobi, The proboscis Monkey / Le Nasique - Kalaweit

Bobi, Le nasique
Geüpload door kalaweitprogram

Bobi arrived at the Kalaweit Rescue centre with 2 severly damaged legs. Unable to walk, he could only drag himself along the ground to hunt for scraps of food.

Now he is fully recovered and spends his time in the tree tops where he belongs. Soon he can be released back into the wild.

Another great success story for a dedicated team of animal rescuers, working under extreme pressures of poverty and threats to their safety. Can you offer them some help?

Rare Sundaland Leopard Facing extinction

Azlan said the Sundaland species is the biggest predator on Borneo, a resource-rich island split between Malaysia and Indonesia where wildlife habitats are under pressure from logging and plantations.

The Sundaland clouded leopard, a newly identified and little understood species of big cat in Borneo, has been filmed for the first time.

The leopard, a healthy-looking animal a metre long (3 feet) and weighing about 40 kilos (90 pounds) was caught on video at night at the Dermakot Forest Reserve in Malaysian Borneo's Sabah state.

"What surprised us was that while clouded leopards are very elusive cats, this one was not scared at all," said Azlan Mohamed, a field scientist with University Sabah Malaysia.

"Despite our powerful spot lights and the roar of our vehicle's engine, it walked around our vehicle calmly," he told AFP.

"It is rare to see the big cat in the wild. These cats are usually shy of humans, it was by chance we caught it on video."

The Sundaland clouded leopard was classified as a new species through genetic studies several years ago and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature designated it as endangered in 2008.

Previously all clouded leopards living across the Southeast Asian mainland were thought to be the same species.

Azlan said the Sundaland species is the biggest predator on Borneo, a resource-rich island split between Malaysia and Indonesia where wildlife habitats are under pressure from logging and plantations.

Borneo mega-dams proposal raises fears for tribes, wildlife

A massive tract of Borneo jungle, an area the size of Singapore, will soon disappear under the waters of the Bakun dam, a multi-billion-dollar project nearing completion after years of controversy.

The dam, which forced thousands of indigenous people off their ancestral lands, has struggled through setbacks and delays since its approval in 1993, as well as fierce criticism over its environmental impact.

But even before the turbines of the 2.2 billion dollar hydro-electric facility begin to turn, activists have sounded the alarm over plans for 12 more mega-dams on Malaysia's half of Borneo which it shares with Indonesia.

Balan Balang, an elderly chief of the Penan tribe, sighs as he talks of the Murum dam, the first of the dozen dams envisioned for Sarawak state, which will drown the hunting grounds and burial sites of his people.

"This government is very bad. In the old days people would fight us using machetes or spears. But now they just sign away our lives on pieces of paper," said the headman, who sports the elongated earlobes distinctive to his tribe.

"My people never want to leave our place. We want to die in our place," he said, after a long journey from his rainforest home to seek help from indigenous lawyers in Miri, a coastal town in Malaysian Borneo.

Human rights activists are intent on avoiding a repeat of the botched relocation of some 15,000 indigenous people in the Bakun area who they say have made an unhappy transition to life in resettlement areas.

Balan Balang's village is outside the Murum resettlement area, but some 1,500 people -- mostly Penan but including another of Sarawak's tribes, the Kenyah -- will be forced to abandon their homes for an uncertain future.

The chief, who is not sure of his birth date but reckons he is "between 70 and 80 years old", has seen much hardship during his long life.

As a young boy he watched fearfully as Japanese warplanes flew overhead during the World War II occupation, while rampant logging later degraded the jungles where his people forage for food, wild game, and materials for shelter.

"Now the rivers are all polluted. The wildlife has slowly disappeared -- wild boar, deer, gibbons. Even the broad-leafed plants that we use for roofing, and rattan which we use to make mats and baskets, is gone," he said.

But what brought him to Miri are new threats to his way of life, the dam project as well as plantation firms who want to clear what is left of the jungle and grow palm oil and foreign timber species.

"Our people oppose our area being included for the dam because that's where we come from, our ancestors lived and died and were buried there. For us we have no other place, that is our only place," he said.