KUCHING, Feb 11 : The Heart of Borneo (HoB), which straddles
the transboundary highlands of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, may be the last stronghold
for the preservation of lowland forest in Borneo, said a report released by
World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia)’s Heart of Borneo Initiative.
Its team leader Adam Tomasek said today based on the the new
report titled “The Environmental Status of the Heart of Borneo”, the good news
overall was that most forest types in the HoB were currently rated as good or
very good.
“This is particularly important for lowland forest which is
under severe threat across the rest of the island of Borneo, especially as it
is prime habitat for the pygmy elephant, orang utan and rhino,” he said in a
statement here.
However, he said, the HoB still remained under serious
threat from industrial conversion of natural forest for oil palm cultivation
and other agricultural crops as well as illegal logging and unsustainable rates
of legal timber extraction.
Forest fires, mining and over hunting of wildlife were also
major threats which future versions of the report would serve to monitor, said
Adam in highlighting the significance of the report, which analysed the
environmental health of the area via 13 key targets and more than 50
scientifically derived biological and ecosystem indicators.
The targets included endangered animal species, such as the
orang utan, rhino and pygmy elephant and a selection of ecosystems, including
lowland, heath and montane forests and river systems, with each key target being
given a rating of very good, good, fair or poor – depending on its current
quality within the HoB.
The report was released by WWF to commemorate the fifth
anniversary of the HoB’s Declaration, which committed the governments of
Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia to conserve and sustainably develop the iconic
22 million hectare or 220,000 km sq ‘Heart of Borneo’.
It was written by WWF Indonesia’s field biologist, Stephen
Wulffraat with funding from the Sall Family Foundation via WWF United States in
consultation with a wide range of specialists and scientists who have been
working on Borneo ecology for many years.
Signed on February 12, 2007, the declaration is supported
under important regional and international agreements such as Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines East
Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), and
the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD). - Bernama
No comments:
Post a Comment