Kayan Mentarang National Park ( id, Taman Nasional Kayan Mentarang) is a densely forested

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

North Kalimantan North Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. North Kalimantan borders the Malaysian states of Sabah to the north and Sarawak t ...

, 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 national park is named after a great dispersed Mentarang mountain trails plateau of Apau Kayan which covers the entire park from Datadian area in south region to Apau Ping area in mid region until Long Bawan in north region.

Geography

Kayan Mentarang National Park is located at the border between

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. The park is central to the WWF

Heart of Borneo The Heart of Borneo is a conservation agreement initiated by the World Wide Fund for Nature to protect a 220,000 km² forested region on Borneo island. The agreement was signed by the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia in Bali on 1 ...

initiative, which aims to protect the transboundary highlands of Borneo, which straddle the three Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia, Malaysia and

Brunei Darussalam Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by the ...

. Until recently it has been difficult for tourists to enter this huge National Park, with difficulties often encountered at the local rural Malaysian-Indonesian border checkpoint. However, as the Heart of Borneo initiative has progressed agreements have been put in place which promotes movement of tourists into Kayan Mentarang National Park from Malaysia via

Ba'kelalan Ba'kelalan is a group of nine villages at Maligan Highlands of Limbang Division, Sarawak, Malaysia about above sea level and 4 km from the border with Indonesian Kalimantan and 150 km from the nearest town of Lawas. There are nine v ...

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the M ...

, Malaysian Borneo.

Ecology

Animals found in the park include the mammals such as Malayan pangolin, the

long-tailed 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 macaque ...

, the

proboscis monkey The proboscis monkey (''Nasalis larvatus'') or long-nosed monkey is an arboreal Old World monkey with an unusually large nose, a reddish-brown skin color and a long tail. It is endemic to the southeast Asian island of Borneo and is found mostly ...

, the Bornean gibbon, the greater slow loris, the western tarsier, the

clouded leopard The clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa''), also called the mainland clouded leopard, is a wild cat inhabiting dense forests from the foothills of the Himalayas through mainland Southeast Asia into South China. In the early 19th century, a cl ...

, the

marbled cat The marbled cat (''Pardofelis marmorata'') is a small wild cat native from the eastern Himalayas to Southeast Asia, where it inhabits forests up to an elevation of . As it is present in a large range, it has been listed as Near Threatened on the ...

, the

flat-headed cat The flat-headed cat (''Prionailurus planiceps'') is a small wild cat native to the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Sumatra. It is an Endangered species, because the wild population probably comprises fewer than 2,500 mature individuals, with s ...

, the

Oriental small-clawed otter The Asian small-clawed otter (''Aonyx cinereus''), also known as the oriental small-clawed otter and the small-clawed otter, is an otter species native to South and Southeast Asia. It has short claws that do not extend beyond the pads of its we ...

, the

sun bear The sun bear (''Helarctos malayanus'') is a species in the family Ursidae (the only species in the genus ''Helarctos'') occurring in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. It is the smallest bear, standing nearly at the shoulder and weighing ...

, and the

Hose's palm civet Hose's palm civet (''Diplogale hosei''), also known as Hose's civet, is a viverrid species endemic to the island of Borneo. It is listed on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable because of an ongoing population decline, estimated to be more than 30% o ...

. Other protected species include the

rhinoceros hornbill The rhinoceros hornbill (''Buceros rhinoceros'') is a large species of forest hornbill (Bucerotidae). In captivity it can live for up to 35 years. It is found in lowland and montane, tropical and subtropical climates and in mountain rain forests ...

, the

helmeted hornbill The helmeted hornbill (''Rhinoplax vigil'') is a very large bird in the hornbill family. It is found on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Thailand and Myanmar. The casque (helmetlike structure on the head) accounts for some 11% of its 3 ...

, Bulwer's pheasant, and the

wrinkled hornbill The wrinkled hornbill or Sunda wrinkled hornbill (''Rhabdotorrhinus corrugatus'') is a medium-large hornbill which is found in forest in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. The wrinkled hornbill is around 70 cm long, and has a ve ...

Human habitation

Archaeological remains in the park including stone tools and graves indicate that the area was inhabited over 350 years ago. Currently there are about 20,000-25,000

Dayak people The Dayak (; older spelling: Dajak) or Dyak or Dayuh are one of the native groups of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic groups, located principally in the central and southern interior of Borneo, each ...

living around the park, from various tribes including the

Kenyah The Kenyah people are an indigenous, Austronesian-speaking people of Borneo, living in the remote Baram Lio Matoh, Long Selaan, Long Moh, Long Anap, Long Mekaba, Long Jeeh, Long Belaong, Long San, Long Silat, Long Tungan, Data Kakus ...

Murut people The Murut are an indigenous ethnic group, comprising 29 sub-ethnic groups inhabiting the northern inland regions of Borneo. The Murutic languages are a family of half a dozen closely related Austronesian languages. The Murut can be found mainly ...

Punan Punan Bah or Punan is an ethnic group found in Sarawak, Malaysia and in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Punan Bah people are distinct and unrelated to the semi-nomadic Penan people. Their name stems from two rivers along the banks of which they ha ...

, Lundayeh and

Lun Bawang The Lun Bawang (formerly known as Trusan Murut or Southern Murut) is an ethnic group found in Central Northern Borneo. They are indigenous to the southwest of Sabah (Interior Division), and the northern region of Sarawak (Limbang Division), high ...

.Indonesian Ministry of Forestry: ''Kayan Mentarang National park''
, retrieved 6 July 2011

References

External links

"'New mammal' seen in Borneo woods"
''BBC News''

*
"'The work of WWF in Kayan Mentarang National Park'""'Remote expeditions in Kayan Mentarang National Park'"
{{authority control National parks of Indonesia Borneo Geography of North Kalimantan Tourist attractions in North Kalimantan Protected areas of Kalimantan 1996 establishments in Indonesia Protected areas established in 1996

Geography

Ecology

Human habitation

See also

References

External links