|
 ForestFocus on Indonesia: Page 7 The threats to Indonesia's environment are strongly linked to the growth of its human populations. With the largest number of people on Sumatra, Java and Bali, lowland forests on these islands were cut for cities and farmland during the first half of the 20th century (Collins et al. 1991). Beginning in the 1960s, industrial, government-sponsored logging began on many islands for valuable timber. Uncontrolled logging and wildfires have consumed millions of acres for decades, destroying 44 percent of original habitats and nearly all the lowland rainforests in Indonesia (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). Java has become nearly denuded, due mainly to the massive growth in human population that totals more than 110 million, almost half the entire population of the United States (Mydans 1996a). The tiny satellite island of Bali has similar crowding problems, and very little forest remains. Between 65 and 80 percent of Sumatra's lowland forests have been cleared to make way for the ever-expanding human population (Collins et al. 1991). By June 2000, an estimated 224.8 million people inhabited Indonesia, the equivalent of 82 percent of the US population, living on 741,000 square miles, or 20 percent of the US land area (New York Times 2000).
Among the first casualties of this deforestation and population growth were Tigers, who numbered in the thousands on Sumatra, Java and Bali up until 1900. The populations of each island had been separated for at least 8,000 years (Matthiessen 2000), as each evolved into a separate race. The Javan (Panthera tigris sondaica) and Bali Tigers (Panthera tigris balica) were far smaller than other Tiger races, with males weighing only about 200 pounds, one‑fourth the size of a male Siberian Tiger. Several Javan Tigers were kept in the Berlin Zoo in the early 1900s without any effort to breed them in captivity (see photo in Tilson and Christie 1999). After massive deforestation of these islands and heavy hunting pressure, their populations crashed (Simon and Geroudet 1970). Udjung Kulon, a large national park, was set aside for the Javan Tiger in 1921, but only 20 to 25 of the species survived by 1955, of which 10 were in this park (Simon and Geroudet 1970). By the 1970s, they had disappeared from Udjong Kulon, and only a few were left in Meru Betiri National Park in the far south. In 1980 a careful survey found tracks of at least three Javan Tigers, but there have been no signs since (Jackson 1990). Bali Tigers were once common in the western portion of the island, but not since 1952 has there been a confirmed report (Simon and Geroudet 1970). Both these races are now considered extinct in the wild, and none survives in zoos (Jackson 1990). These Tigers represented unique genetic strains that are now lost forever. They were the chief predators at the top of their food chain, and their loss impoverished these ecosystems.
The Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), the largest of the three, is the only surviving Indonesian Tiger. Highly endangered (Jackson 1990), its wild population may total only 500 or fewer animals (Nyhus et al. 1999). An intensive conservation program, begun in 1995, involves an international team of biologists who are attempting to determine just how many Tigers are left, whether they have sufficient prey species, how many are being killed by local people and the status of their habitat (Franklin et al. 1999). In Way Kambas National Park in the southeast, researchers, using cameras placed on trails, have photographed them. An estimated 36 Tigers inhabit the second-growth forest and degraded grassland habitat in this park of about 1,500 square kilometers. It is completely surrounded by villages, and nearly all its lowland primary rainforest has been cut (Franklin et al. 1999). Villagers resent the park's ban on using forest and grassland products, and when Tigers prey on livestock, often because of a lack of natural prey, the villagers put out poison. Sumatra's forest fires and rampant poaching of all large animals in Indonesia may extinguish the last of these Tigers, but the conservation research program intends to involve local villagers in saving the Sumatran Tiger and help address many of their needs in the process (Franklin et al. 1999). This race of Tiger is kept in many zoos around the world, unlike the Bali and Java Tigers, and has reproduced. The fragmentation of the forest range of Tigers throughout Asia to India has isolated populations, caused inbreeding, and exposed them to poaching, even in national parks.
The parks created for the Javan and Bali Tigers protect a great diversity of other wildlife and plants. Meru Betiri National Park preserves the last remnants of lowland rainforest in Java (Whitten and Whitten 1992). A population of about 75 to 100 endangered wild cattle, or Banteng (Bos javanicus), and Leopards (Panthera pardus) are also resident (Whitten and Whitten 1992). Unfortunately, illegal cutting of trees and rattan within the Meru Betiri National Park has been extremely destructive (Whitten and Whitten 1992). Udjung Kulon National Park on the western tip of Java is home to a small population of Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), the rarest of all rhinoceros, along with Sambar Deer (Cervus unicolor) and Barking Deer (Muntiacus muntjak) and Banteng (Whitten and Whitten 1992). Sumatra has several important national parks as well. Mount Leuser National Park's swamp forests protect the last Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), second rarest of the rhinos. This extremely primitive and hairy rhinoceros has been captured for zoos, where most have died and none has been born in captivity. Researchers in the park have tried to prevent further captures of these highly aquatic rhinos in order to preserve the last wild members of the species. This park also has resident Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), Siamangs (Hylobates syndactylus) and endangered Sun Bears (Helarctos malayanus). Unfortunately, some of Sumatra's national parks have been overrun with people cutting trees, causing erosion, and replacing forest with agriculture. The Kerinci-Seblat National Park, located along a mountain range in southern Sumatra, encompasses 14,847 square kilometers of forest, but within the park is a virtual city of 273,000 people, growing at a rate of 3.6 percent a year, who denude the hillsides and convert forest to cinnamon, cloves and coffee. They are gradually destroying this entire forest and the watersheds of the island's two most important rivers (Collins et al. 1991).
|
|
