Reforesting for the climate of tomorrow : recommendations for strengthening orangutan conservation and climate change resilience in Kutai National Park, Indonesia

In Indonesia, Kutai National Park is home to what is likely to be East Kalimantan’s largest population of the Critically Endangered eastern subspecies of the Bornean Orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus morio. It also hosts an astounding diversity of other species. Yet East Kalimantan faces many challenges in maintaining and protecting biodiversity from threats, including climate change. Forest restoration, also referred to as reforestation, presents a valuable opportunity to restore biodiversity and function to degraded areas that were once forested. Reforestation initiatives are being carried out in Kutai National Park, but there is a clear and pressing need to update Kutai National Park’s existing restoration practices to ensure forest integrity, provide opportunities for threatened species, and guide consideration of how to build climate change resilience. By doing so, the forests that orangutans need to survive into the future are more likely to persist. We examine restoration case studies, remind readers of restoration best practice, and present sets of tree species from a set of ~250 considered in the analysis that are likely to be suited to various restoration targets for Kutai National Park, e.g. with a focus on habitat restoration for orangutan; or a focus on conservation of rare and useful species. The intended audiences of this work include: orangutan researchers, government, mining companies, nurseries and other companies that are seeking guidance on habitat restoration for climate change resilience in East Kalimantan, as well as those wishing to support biodiversity conservation and/or restoration in the region.Plant science

Global demand for natural resources eliminated more than 100,000 Bornean orangutans

Unsustainable exploitation of natural resources is increasingly affecting the highly biodiverse tropics. Although rapid developments in remote sensing technology have permitted more precise estimates of land-cover change over large spatial scales , our knowledge about the effects of these changes on wildlife is much more sparse. Here we use field survey data, predictive density distribution modeling, and remote sensing to investigate the impact of resource use and land-use changes on the density distribution of Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Our models indicate that between 1999 and 2015, half of the orangutan population was affected by logging, deforestation, or industrialized plantations. Although land clearance caused the most dramatic rates of decline, it accounted for only a small proportion of the total loss. A much larger number of orangutans were lost in selectively logged and primary forests, where rates of decline were less precipitous, but where far more orangutans are found. This suggests that further drivers, independent of land-use change, contribute to orangutan loss. This finding is consistent with studies reporting hunting as a major cause in orangutan decline . Our predictions of orangutan abundance loss across Borneo suggest that the population decreased by more than 100,000 individuals, corroborating recent estimates of decline . Practical solutions to prevent future orangutan decline can only be realized by addressing its complex causes in a holistic manner across political and societal sectors, such as in land-use planning, resource exploitation, infrastructure development, and education, and by increasing long-term sustainability

Dipterocarpaceae: forest fires and forest recovery

One of the serious problems Indonesia is facing today is deforestation. Forests have been playing a very important role in Indonesia as the main natural resources for the economic growth of the country. Large areas of tropical forests, worldwide considered to be among the richest in plant diversity, have been lost in recent years mainly due to inappropriate logging, illegal logging, shifting cultivation, and forest fires. The negative repercussions of these activities are felt from an economical as well as from an ecological point of view.Time and again, Indonesia has experienced severe droughts often resulting in large forest fires. The fires used to occur only sporadically but now occur regularly every approx. 4 years in the area, with the largest and most destructive ones so far taking place in 1997-98. This climatic phenomenon was linked to a particularly pronounced El Niño Southern-Oscillation (ENSO), combined with numerous fires closely connected with human activities.'Dipterocarpaceae: Forest fires and forest recovery' discusses a comprehensive ecological understanding of fires, an overview of forest dynamics after fires, and the restoration strategies of the forest. Planting materials are reviewed in terms of their genetic diversity and their growth in different soil substrates, with various mycorrhizal inoculations and levels of light. The present publication is the last in a series adding information to the earlier projects conducted by Smits (1994), Yasman (1995), Hatta (1999) and Omon (2002).Microclimatic conditions change considerably after forest fires. The burned forest was characterized by elevated levels of light intensity and heat, and significantly reduced levels of humidity. After the fires, the natural dynamics of forest, in terms of regeneration of plants and butterfly communities, was set back to an earlier development phase where there were no more trees, only 2.5% of saplings survived and all saplings shorter than 5 m died. The butterfly community in the burned area had high densities of pioneer species associated with disturbed habitats. Burning caused a significant shift in the forest butterfly community. There was a highly significant variation in sapling and seedling density, diameter, and species richness between burned and unburned forest. Even though sapling height was significantly greater in burned than in unburned forest, there was no significant difference between their growth in both forests. The growth of both saplings and seedlings was completely unaffected by any edge effect in both forest types. The species richness, density and height of seedlings were significantly greater in unburned forest but their growth was significantly greater in burned forest. The diverse seedling community of unburned forest was replaced by a species-poor community of pioneers dominated by Euphorbiaceae.Dipterocarp forests can recover from fire impact if the damage is not too extensive and the fires are not recurrent, but their natural recovery is too slow to make it economically interesting, and therefore foresters try to restore the desired state of high forest as soon as possible. Their measures are based on the fact that similar microclimatic conditions in both forest types were reached within two years, so assisted recovery can be implemented soon in the burned area by introducing valuable climax tree species i.e dipterocarp species, before they would arrive spontaneously.Such operations require seedlings. Key issues for the management of dipterocarp stock plants in the nurseries included genetic diversity of the seedlings, choice and preparation of appropriate potting mixes, species-soil original matching, nursery hygiene and mycorrhizal inoculation. Cuttings grown in sandy loam showed a stronger and faster growth than the cuttings in sandy clay loam and loam. The higher sand fraction in the soil provided a good aeration for mycorrhizae and plants roots. Pasteurised soil media increased the growth of seedlings in the nursery. It is assumed that composition, acidity, moisture content and heat of the rooting media can be combined in a treatment optimising the conditions for both root development and root colonisation by fungi, thus increasing the quality and quantity of seedlings produced. It was found that interactions between so many factors lead to a highly complex situation, far from easy to control.S. leprosula proved to be very homogeneous as expressed from the similarities in frequencies of the band patterns. The similarity was relatively high between eastern, central and western Kalimantan populations but the nearer the geographic distance the more similar the populations.The initial inoculation supported S. leprosula to start growing in the greenhouse. In the established dipterocarp nursery, the spores of mycorrhizal fungi inoculated seedlings easily and freely. In 15 months in the greenhouse, all seedlings were colonised by these mycorrhizal weed fungi. Laccaria sp. was the most common one, followed by Thelephora sp. , Riessiella sp. and Inocybe sp . After 12 months in the field, the species composition of mycorrhizal fungi involved in root colonisation changed again. Inocybe sp . was still there, with two new other species being most abundant, namely Amanita sp. and Scleroderma sp. Even though the growth of S. leprosula seedlings in the nursery was supported by initial inoculation, in the field, no initial inoculation seedlings showed a stronger growth because they benefited more from the late stage fungi infecting the plants at the planting location.When dipterocarps are used, the key to success for a dipterocarp planting is species choice and light control. Selecting species suited to the local soil and site conditions is essential. 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. S. leprosula is a light-demanding species at the early stage, 60 to 73% (relative light intensity) for seedlings and 74 to 100% for saplings.The assisted recovery of pure Imperata cylindrica areas after fires is accelerated using mixed plantations composed of indigenous fast-growing pioneer tree species, i.e Peronema canescens that offer suitable conditions for the establishment of indigenous dipterocarp species. In circumstances without stress by fire, a young P. canescens tree has a well-developed monopodial trunk with a light canopy so that the light intensity under this species is very high or not much lower than in the open site. This shade condition (semi-closed) is not very suitable for S. leprosula seedlings when under-planted under this species. The capacity of P. canescens after fires to reiterate abundantly ('traumatic reiteration') and converge architecturally from Scarrone's model to a physiognomy resembling Leeuwenberg's model provided more favourable environmental conditions for S. leprosula to grow under the canopy of these trees (closed stand). Within almost three years, S. leprosula saplings in a closed stand and in a semi-open area reached a height of 281 to 283 cm and a diameter of 33 to 34 mm, whereas in the open area and under the semi-closed canopy of. P. canescens they were only 165 to 193 cm high and 22 to 27 mm in diameter.Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to environmental change. Adaptability is a two-sided process. It rests on the optimal match between a genotype (organism) and its direct environment (ecosystem patch or 'eco-unit'). It is important to understand the reaction of the plants, so as to select genotypes adapted and adaptable to environmental stress in new environments. For this reason, next to the taxonomical data of S. leprosula , the architectural model and its reiteration are also described in this book.In Chapter 7 an overview is provided of the fire and forest regeneration issues with special reference to the Dipterocarpaceae and Shorea leprosula . Much practical information is provided on conditions for a successful regeneration of Dipterocarpaceae. It is concluded that the Dipterocarpaceae have become a threatened plant family and that safeguarding the genetic diversity of Shorea leprosula is highly urgent. If Dipterocarpaceae are to survive, the issue of fires must be resolved and dealt with

Butterfly, seedling, sapling and tree diversity and composition in a fire-affected Bornean rainforest

Fire-affected forests are becoming an increasingly important component of tropical landscapes. The impact of wildfires on rainforest communities is, however, poorly understood. In this study the density, species richness and community composition of seedlings, saplings, trees and butterflies were assessed in unburned and burned forest following the 1997/98 El Nino Southern Oscillation burn event in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. More than half a year after the fires, sapling and tree densities in the burned forest were only 2.5% and 38.8%, respectively, of those in adjacent unburned forest. Rarefied species richness and Shannon's H' were higher in unburned forest than burned forest for all groups but only significantly so for seedlings. There were no significant differences in evenness between unburned and burned forest. Matrix regression and Akaike's information criterion (AIC) revealed that the best explanatory models of similarity included both burning and the distance between sample plots indicating that both deterministic processes (related to burning) and dispersal driven stochastic processes structure post-disturbance rainforest assemblages. Burning though explained substantially more variation in seedling assemblage structure whereas distance was a more important explanatory variable for trees and butterflies. The results indicate that butterfly assemblages in burned forest were primarily derived from adjacent unburned rainforest, exceptions being species of grass-feeders such as Orsotriaena medus that are normally found in open, disturbed areas, whereas burned forest seedling assemblages were dominated by typical pioneer genera, such as various Macaranga species that were absent or rare in unburned forest. Tree assemblages in the burned forest were represented by a subset of fire-resistant species, such as Eusideroxylon zwageri and remnant dominant species from the unburned forest

Butterfly, seedling, sapling and tree diversity and composition is a fire-affected Bornean rainforest

Fire-affected forests are becoming an increasingly important component of tropical landscapes. The impact of wildfires on rainforest communities is, however, poorly understood. In this study the density, species richness and community composition of seedlings, saplings, trees and butterflies were assessed in unburned and burned forest following the 1997/98 El Nino Southern Oscillation burn event in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. More than half a year after the fires, sapling and tree densities in the burned forest were only 2.5% and 38.8%, respectively, of those in adjacent unburned forest. Rarefied species richness and Shannon's H' were higher in unburned forest than burned forest for all groups but only significantly so for seedlings. There were no significant differences in evenness between unburned and burned forest. Matrix regression and Akaike's information criterion (AIC) revealed that the best explanatory models of similarity included both burning and the distance between sample plots indicating that both deterministic processes (related to burning) and dispersal driven stochastic processes structure post-disturbance rainforest assemblages. Burning though explained substantially more variation in seedling assemblage structure whereas distance was a more important explanatory variable for trees and butterflies. The results indicate that butterfly assemblages in burned forest were primarily derived from adjacent unburned rainforest, exceptions being species of grass-feeders such as Orsotriaena medus that are normally found in open, disturbed areas, whereas burned forest seedling assemblages were dominated by typical pioneer genera, such as various Macaranga species that were absent or rare in unburned forest. Tree assemblages in the burned forest were represented by a subset of fire-resistant species, such as Eusideroxylon zwageri and remnant dominant species from the unburned forest