Betung Kerihun National Park ( id, Taman Nasional Betung Kerihun)) is a

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

located in the Indonesian province of

West Kalimantan West Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five Indonesian provinces comprising Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city is Pontianak, Indonesia, Pontianak. The province has ...

, on the island of

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

. The park was established in 1995, and has a total area of or about 5.5 percent of

Province area. Together with the

Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary is a large protected area on the island of Borneo in Sarawak, Malaysia. It is significant for orangutan conservation. Together with Batang Ai National Park these protected areas host an estimated 1,400 oranguta ...

in Malaysia, it has been proposed to form a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

named the "Transborder Rainforest Heritage of Borneo".

Topography and ecology

Betung Kerihun National Park is hilly and mountainous, with altitudes ranging from to almost . The topography is characterized by steep slopes, with more than half of the park area having slopes over 45%. The highest peaks are Mount Kerihun () and Mount Lawit (). The park is located at the headwaters of the

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 IndonesiaMacK ...

. The park largely consists of two ecoregions,

Borneo montane rain forests The Borneo montane rain forests are an ecoregion, of cloud forest, within the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Location and description This ecoregion consists of tropical moun ...

, which covers about 2/3 of the area, and

Borneo lowland rain forest 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 m ...

Flora and fauna

In the lowland forests the dominant emergent trees are ''

dipterocarp Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 16 genera and about 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus ''Dipterocarpus'', is derived from Greek (''di'' = two, ''pteron'' = wing and ''karpos'' = fru ...

'' species, which are replaced at higher altitude with oaks (''Quercus'' and ''Lithocarpus'' ssp.) and chestnut trees (''Castanopsis'' ssp.). At least 97 species of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

and 49 species of

palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

have been identified in the Park. The fauna of the park is rich, with 300 species of bird (25

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Borneo), at least 162 fish species and at least 54 mammals. The park is home to endangered

Bornean orangutan The Bornean orangutan (''Pongo pygmaeus'') is a species of orangutan endemic to the island of Borneo. Together with the Sumatran orangutan (''Pongo abelii'') and Tapanuli orangutan (''Pongo tapanuliensis''), it belongs to the only genus of great ...

and seven other

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

species: Müller's Bornean gibbon, white-fronted surili,

maroon leaf monkey The maroon langur, maroon leaf monkey, or red leaf monkey (''Presbytis rubicunda'') is a member of the family Cercopithecidae. It is found on the southeast Asian island of Borneo and the nearby smaller Karimata. ''P. rubicunda'' mostly live in fo ...

southern pig-tailed macaque The southern pig-tailed macaque (''Macaca nemestrina''), also known as the Sundaland pig-tailed macaque and Sunda pig-tailed macaque, is a medium-sized macaque that lives in southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It is known locally as bero ...

crab-eating macaque The crab-eating macaque (''Macaca fascicularis''), also known as the long-tailed macaque and referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories, is a cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. A species of macaque, the crab-eating macaqu ...

Sunda slow loris The Sunda slow loris (''Nycticebus coucang'') or greater slow loris is a Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhine primate and a species of slow loris native to Indonesia, West Malaysia, southern Thailand and Singapore. It measures from head to tail and wei ...

and

Horsfield's tarsier Horsfield's tarsier (''Cephalopachus bancanus''), also known as the western tarsier, is the only species of tarsier in the genus ''Cephalopachus''. Named for American naturalist Thomas Horsfield, it occurs on Borneo, Sumatra and nearby islands ...

Human habitation

Several Dayak tribes, including Dayak Iban, Dayak Taman, and Dayak Bukat live in the park. There are 12 villages in and around the park, 2 of which are located inside the park (Nanga Bungan and Tanjung Lokang) and 6 are adjacent to the park boundary. They live from

hunting Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

, collecting non-timber forest products and

subsistence farming Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...

based on a pattern of

shifting cultivation Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cul ...

Conservation and threats

Betung Kerihun National Park was first established as a 600,000 ha nature reserve in 1982 by a Ministry of Agriculture decree. The size was enlarged to 800,000 ha in 1992 and the conservation status was changed to

in 1995. The Betung Kerihun Park Management Unit was formally launched by the Minister of Forestry in 1997. Currently, it has 57 full-time staff and 20 honorary members. Among these, 24 park rangers are responsible for supervising each of the four field posts in the 800,000ha area. Significant threats towards the integrity of Betung Kerihun are

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

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 pro ...

and wildlife poaching. WWF data collected in 2002 found that about 31,000 trees were illegally logged in the Park. Reports suggest poaching of the most endangered primate orangutan is reaching alarming levels. About 10-15 orangutans were traded every month from West and Central Kalimantan forests to supply markets in Indonesia's large cities, including Jakarta and Denpasar.

References

Notes