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Borneo Peat Swamp Forests
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. Location and description Peat swamp forests occur where waterlogged soils prevent dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing, which over time creates thick layer of acidic peat. The peat swamp forests on Borneo occur in the Indonesian state of Kalimantan, the Malaysian state of Sarawak and in the Belait District of Brunei on coastal lowlands, built up behind the brackish mangrove forests and bounded by the Borneo lowland rain forests on better-drained soils. There are also areas of inland river-fed peat forest at higher elevations in central Kalimantan around the Mahakam Lakes and Lake Sentarum on the Kapuas River. Borneo has a tropical monsoon climate. Recent history Over the past decade, the government of Indonesia has drained over 1 million hectares of the Borneo peat swamp forests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indomalayan Realm
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to lowland southern China, and through Indonesia as far as Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Borneo, east of which lies the Wallace line, the realm boundary named after Alfred Russel Wallace which separates Indomalaya from Australasia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan, and Japan's Ryukyu Islands. Most of Indomalaya was originally covered by forest, and includes tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, with tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests predominant in much of India and parts of Southeast Asia. The tropical forests of Indomalaya are highly variable and diverse, with economically important trees, especially in the families Dipterocarpaceae and Fabaceae. Major ecol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root '' brak''. Certain human activities can produce brackish water, in particular civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish water pools for freshwater prawn farming. Brackish water is also the primary waste product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment (see article on shrimp farms). Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (‰), which is a specific grav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Niño
El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date Line and 120°W), including the area off the Pacific coast of South America. The ENSO is the cycle of warm and cold sea surface temperature (SST) of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean. El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific. El Niño phases are known to last close to four years; however, records demonstrate that the cycles have lasted between two and seven years. During the development of El Niño, rainfall develops between September–November. The cool phase of ENSO is es, La Niña, translation=The Girl, with SSTs in the eastern Pacific below average, and air pressure high in the eastern Pacific and low in the western Pacific. The ENSO cycle, including bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1997 Southeast Asian Haze
The 1997 Southeast Asian haze was an international air pollution disaster that occurred during the second half of 1997, its after-effects causing widespread atmospheric visibility and health problems within Southeast Asia. Considered the most severe Southeast Asian haze event of all time, the total costs of the 1997 haze are estimated at US$9 billion, due mainly to health care and disruption of air travel and business activities. The influence of the 1997 fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra on ambient air quality was evident by July and peaked in September/October before weakening by November, when the delayed monsoonal rain extinguished the fires and improved air quality within the region. During the peak episode, satellite imagery (NASA/TOMS aerosol index maps) showed a haze layer that expanded over an area of more than , covering large parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Its northward extension partially reached Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand and the Philippines and its we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muara Kaman Nature Reserve
Muara means estuary in the Malay and Indonesian languages and may refer to: Places *Muara, Brunei, a town in the Brunei-Muara District, Brunei *Brunei-Muara District, northernmost district in Brunei *Muara Bungo Airport, an airport in Muara Bungo, Jambi, Indonesia *Maura (district), a district in the North Tapanuli Regency of North Sumatra province, Sumatra, Indonesia *Muara Enim, capital of Muara Enim Regency, South Sumatra province, Sumatra, Indonesia * Muara Karang, an administrative village of Penjaringan, North Jakarta, Indonesia *Muara Kemumu, a subdistrict of Kepahiang Regency, Bengkulu, Indonesia * Muara Satui, an anchorage coal loading port in South Kalimantan, Indonesia *Muara Takus, a Buddhist temple complex in Riau province, Sumatra, Indonesia *Muara Tebas, estuary at the mouth of the Sarawak River in Malaysia Other uses * "Muara Hati", 2012 song by Malaysian artists Siti Nurhaliza and Hafiz Suip See also *Muar (other) Muar may refer to * Muar District, a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social And Environmental Impact Of Palm Oil
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. Oil palms produce 38% of the world's vegetable-oil output on 5% of the world's vegetable-oil farmland. Palm oil plantations, typically monoculture crops are under increasing scrutiny for their effects on the environment, including loss of carbon-sequestering, biodiverse forest land. There is also concern over displacement and disruption of human and animal populations due to palm oil cultivation. Statistics An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, along with about 500,000 people directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with related industries. As of 2006, the cumu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegal Logging
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a protected area; the cutting down of protected species; or the extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits. Illegal logging is a driving force for a number of environmental issues such as deforestation, soil erosion and biodiversity loss which can drive larger scale environmental crisis such as climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. Illegality may also occur during transport, such as illegal processing and export (through fraudulent declaration to customs); the avoidance of taxes and other charges, and fraudulent certification. These acts are often referred to as "wood laundering". Illegal logging is driven by a number of economic forces, such as demand for raw materials, land grabbing and demand for pasture for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deforestation In Borneo
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. In the 1980s and 1990s, the forests of Borneo were leveled at a rate unprecedented in human history, burned, logged and cleared, and commonly replaced with agriculture. The deforestation continued through the 2000s at a slower pace, alongside the expansion of palm oil plantations. Half of the annual global tropical timber procurement is from Borneo. Palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Much of the forest clearance is illegal. The World Wildlife Fund divides Borneo into a number of distinct ecoregions including the Borneo lowland rain forests which cover most of the island, with an area of , the Borneo peat swamp forests, the ''Kerangas'' or Sundaland heath forests, the Southwest Borneo fresh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mega Rice Project (Kalimantan)
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. Overview The peat swamp forest in the south of Kalimantan is an unusual ecoregion that is home to many unique or rare species such as orangutans, as well as to slow-growing but valuable trees. The peat swamp forest is a dual ecosystem, with diverse tropical trees standing on a 10m - 12m layer of peat - partly decayed and waterlogged plant material - which in turn covers relatively infertile soil. Peat is a major store of carbon. If broken down and burned it contributes to CO2 emissions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tropical Monsoon Climate
An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ''Am''. Tropical monsoon climates have monthly mean temperatures above in every month of the year and a dry season. The tropical monsoon climate is the intermediate climate between the wet Af (or tropical rainforest climate) and the drier Aw (or tropical savanna climate). A tropical monsoon climate's driest month has on average less than 60 mm, but more than 100-\left(\frac\right). This is in direct contrast to a tropical savanna climate, whose driest month has less than 60 mm of precipitation and also less than 100-\left(\frac\right) of average monthly precipitation. In essence, a tropical monsoon climate tends to either have more rainfall than a tropical savanna climate or have less pronounced dry seasons. A tropical monsoon c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kapuas River
The Kapuas River (or Kapoeas River) is a river in the Indonesian part of Borneo island, at the geographic center of Maritime Southeast Asia. At in length, it is the longest river in the island of Borneo and the longest river of IndonesiaMacKinnon, p. 133 and one of the world's longest island rivers. It originates in the Müller mountain range at the center of the island and flows west into the South China Sea creating an extended marshy delta. The delta is located west-southwest of Pontianak, the capital of the West Kalimantan province.Kapuas River Encyclopædia Britannica on-line This Kapuas River should be distinguished from another , which starts on the ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Sentarum
The Lake Sentarum National Park ( id, Taman Nasional Danau Sentarum) 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. An area of 800 km2 was first gazetted as Wildlife Reserve in 1982, which in 1994 was extended to 1,320 km2 (890 km2 is swamp forest area and 430 km2 is dry-land) when it became a Ramsar site. In 1999 it was declared a National Park, however ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
