Abstract
Changing Vegetation and Challenges to Borders of Tanjung Puting National Park in Borneo
Track: Climate Change
Author(s): Nancy Briggs, Birute Galdikas, Leslie Bolick
Tanjung Puting National Park consists of over a million acres and is acknowledged as an official Biodiversity Reserve by the UNESCO. The changing eastern side of the park and the overall vegetation patterns within the park are the focus of this research because of its impact on orangutan habitat. Dr. Birute Galdikas started her studies in the Tanjung Puting Reserve in 1971 and subsequently she helped co-establish it as a park. This park boasts the largest wild population of orangutans in the world, in no small measure due to her continual presence studying and saving orangutans. With the recent help of Spot Image of France and the Planet Action, the Orangutan Foundation International OFI with its counterpart Yayorin Orangutan Foundation Indonesia, has studied the changing face of the reserve, now a park. Near the eastern side of the park, the tropical rainforest has been especially in danger with increasing palm oil plantations pushing the wildlife into smaller areas. The changes are striking and OFI is grateful to Spot Image, Planet Action, Esri, and the Forestry Department of Indonesia, for the newest data analysis in 2008-2009.
Nancy Briggs
Orangutan Foundation International
824 S. Wellesley Ave.
Los Angeles , California 90049
United States
Phone: (310) 9278628
E-mail: drnancy7@gmail.com
Birute Galdikas
OFI
824 South Wellesley
Los Angeles , California 90049
United States
Phone: 310 820 4906
E-mail: ofi@orangutan.org
Leslie Bolick
OFI
824 South WEllesley Ave
Los Angeles 90049
United States
Phone: 310 8204906
E-mail: leslie.ofi@gmail.com