Gunung Palung National Park
Encyclopedia
Gunung Palung National Park lies on the island of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, in the Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n province of West Kalimantan
West Kalimantan
West Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator....

, north of Ketapang
Ketapang
Ketapang is the capital city of Ketapang regency . Ketapang city is located, on the island of Borneo. It is a small city on the delta of the Pawan River. Ketapang regency is one of the regencies of West Kalimantan province in Indonesia. It occupies an area of 35,809 km²...

 and east of Sukadana
Sukadana
Sukadana is the capital city of North Kayong regency , on the island of Borneo. North Kayong regency is one of the regencies of West Kalimantan province in Indonesia...

.

Geography

The park is notable for its diversity of habitat types, ranging from mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 and freshwater swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...

 forest, to lowland alluvial (empran bench) forest, to montane forest, and for its diversity of wildlife. It is one of only a handful of parks in the world where orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

s can be seen in the wild.

A research station (Cabang Panti) was established at the western foot of the main Gunung Palung mountains in 1985, and is owned and operated by the park management authority. Research there has contributed significantly to our understanding of Borneo forest biology.

Illegal, non-mechanized, 'hand logging'
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 of protected species; or the...

 has been a problem in the park, especially from ca. 2000-2003. Initiatives by park authorities and NGOs (increased policing, monitoring by microlight, educational activities) contributed to a reduction of illegal activities, however, reduction of these activities has seen a resurgence in illegal logging at several hot-spots. The park was one of the key sites of the EU-funded Illegal Logging Response Center (ILRC, now continued in FLEGT).

Research

In 1985 Dr. Mark Leighton established the Cabang Panti Research Camp deep within the National Park. The site encompasses over 2100 hectares networked by over 25km of well-marked trails extending throughout all seven forest types including the upper montane forest.

Following a short period of non-occupation from 2004-2007, Cabang Panti Research Station was rebuilt in 2007 with money provided solely by two research teams from the United States. Projects lead by Dr. Andrew Marshall of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Cheryl Knott of Boston University funded the reconstruction. The current facilities include a main two-story wooden building complete with six private rooms, three office areas, a kitchen, living area and a mezzanine
Mezzanine
Mezzanine may refer to:* Mezzanine , an intermediate floor between main floors of a building* Mezzanine, in technology, can refer to a thin sheet of plastic insulating different parts of circuitry from each other in cramped environments, such as laptop interiors* Mezzanine board, or daughterboard,...

. Three out-buildings include one five-room bunkhouse for local research assistants, and two one-room houses for Principal Investigator
Principal investigator
A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

s.

Cabang Panti currently houses a number of researchers including two long-term interests: the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project, and the Gibbon and Leaf-Monkey Project.

Orangutan conservation

The orangutan is considered the umbrella species
Umbrella species
Umbrella species are species selected for making conservation related decisions, typically because protecting these species indirectly protects the many other species that make up the ecological community of its habitat. Species conservation can be subjective because it is hard to determine the...

 for conservation in the National Park, and is also an important ecological agent for seed dispersal and seed predation. It is believed that orangutans at Gunung Palung constitute one of the most dense and largest populations on Borneo. A census conducted in 2001, part-funded by The Orangutan Conservancy, gives an estimate of 2500 individual orangutans, about 17% of the estimated population in Borneo and close to 10% of the world’s population.

The Gunung Palung Orangutan Project was established in 1994 by Dr. Cheryl Knott. This project integrates scientific research about orangutan biology and ecology with conservation programs aimed at the preservation of this endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 and its habitat. Cheryl Knott is working with Tim Laman in conducting scientific investigation of the factors governing orangutan reproduction and population viability, increasing awareness on the local level to encourage support for conservation of the park and community education around the park and capacity-building for National Park Office staff.

In the last decade there has been a great increase in the amount of illegal logging
Deforestation in Borneo
Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation in the past sixty years. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of...

 within this national park. This, in conjunction with the fires raging across the Indonesian rainforests, made immediate conservation action in this area of paramount importance. The Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program was initiated to address the threat to orangutans and their habitat.

Tourism

The park has potential for ecotourism, and has a number of attractive sites for visitors. The only way to gain permission to enter the park is by paying for a package offered by Nasalis Tour and Travel or one of its partners. Nasalis is a for-profit corporation owned and operated by local National Park staff and administrators. As of August 2011, the park had not approved any other tourism companies to operate within the park boundaries.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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