Forest fires are usually the main ‘enemy’ that keeps us on high alert during each and every dry season. The Ministry of Environment and Forestry has stated that since 2015, forest fires have destroyed over 1 million ha of forest in Kalimantan and nearly 3.9 million ha across all of Indonesia’s provinces. Right now, the forests of the Amazon, dubbed the ‘lungs of the world’, is being ravaged by devastating fires.
The current dry season has not only brought dangerous forest fires to our working area, but also other natural disasters; in particular, whirlwinds. Known locally as puting beliung, whirlwinds, or small twisters, are spinning air currents that travel at a speed of more than 63 km/h. A puting beliung typically lasts only five minutes, but, as a sort of miniature tornado or cyclone, has the potential to cause serious damage.
On 20 August, at around 5 p.m., we received information that a whirlwind had swept through nearby Mantangai village in Kapuas Regency, Central Kalimantan. The Mawas Conservation Program works in this village and, together with local residents, has established a plant nursery that cultivates the seedlings of various endemic trees. These seedlings are then used to replant a degraded peatland forest area of approximately 50,000 hectares within the working area of the Mawas Conservation Program.
This recent whirlwind not only damaged dozens of homes, but also wiped out the plant nursery, destroying hundreds of seedlings that were ready to be planted.
The Mawas Conservation Program team is now working together with the Mantangai village community to repair the nursery and sifting out the surviving seeds. We plan to grow the seeds in the wet season on December. Our team and the local residents involved remain optimistic that there will be enough seedlings ready to plant by this time and meet our target!
The BOS Foundation, together with the KLHK and the BKSDA of Central Kalimantan will soon conduct the 44th orangutan release from the Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Centre to the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR).
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
