Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve | |
|---|---|
| Location | Seruyan Regency, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia |
| Area | 64,000 ha (160,000 acres) |
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, nearly the size of Singapore, consists of 64,000 hectares of bio-diverse tropical peat swamp forest that contain as much as 1,000 plant and animal species per hectare and is one of the most highly endangered ecosystems on the planet. The project area and ongoing initiatives focus on environmental conservation, community outreach, and climate control. Rimba Raya is home to one of the few remaining relic populations of wild orangutans and is the largest privately funded orangutan reserve in the world.[1] The area is also one of the world’s largest repositories of carbon. Rimba Raya is the world’s largest REDD+ project -Reduced Emissions from (Avoided) Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).[2] The project developer, InfiniteEARTH, is an industry pioneer, delivering the world’s first REDD (forest carbon accounting) methodology in 2009.[3]
The reserve is located on the island of Borneo in the Province of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, where ever-expanding palm oil plantations have wreaked havoc on the forest and the communities and wildlife that depend on it. The project provides a critical buffer to the Tanjung Puting National Park, home to world-renowned Camp Leakey research center and is bounded by the Java Sea to the south, and the Seruyan River to the east.
Fauna
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve provides safe refuge to 122 species of mammals and 300 species of birds. The reserve is most notably home to the Borneo Orangutan. This endangered species is one of only three remaining species of great apes that once inhabited tropical forests in Thailand, Southern China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Now they are found only in a few fragmented forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.[4]
