Peat Swamp Forest, a forest type commonly found in Tanjung Puting

2006 was an Eli Nino year and there was an extensive drought that lasted for several months. Usually, the height of the dry season comes at mid to late August. In 2006 the drought lasted well into November. 15% of the National Park burned. However, some of the fires took place in secondary forests, small woodland and open areas. Thus, much of that 15% did not represent primary rainforest. Sadly, some virgin forest on the northeastern side of the park was burned by fires which spread from palm oil plantations that were being expanded at the time.

These fires were horrific. OFI fought them tooth and nail. Over 60 OFI staff and rangers from the Care Center and other OFI facilitates fought non-stop for over 6 weeks to stop these fires. On the western side of the park OFI staff, working with Park Rangers and concerned members of the community, cut a slash line 11 km long to prevent the fires from jumping to the dry ground forest above at a place where there was an escarpment separating the deep coastal swamps from the dry forest. This line succeeded in keeping the fire out of the dry ground forest. Once into the dry forest, the fire would have been unstoppable.

The coastal swamps are hellish. They are infused with brackish water, and smell of brine and decay from rotting vegetation. Thorns cover many of the plants. There is no place to put your feet. With every step you sink knee deep into the odious, foul smelling mud. But this coastal swamp is a repository of enormous biodiversity and probably holds species that are still unknown to science (because nobody wants to go there). The swamps are also home to clouds of biting mosquitoes that show no mercy.

Unfortunately, some large areas of the coastal swamps burned in 2006. The good news is that almost five years later there has been some recovery. A few resilient trees survived the fires, some with even a few branches intact. The roots of others survived and sent out shoots which re-incarnated the parent trees. Verdant vegetation now covers the ground. The ash and charcoal are not so much visible on the swamp floor.

In 2009 El Nino came again and the forests burned. OFI fought the fires. Fortunately, this time the damage to the Park was not as great as in 2006.

But the best news has been that during the last year and a half (since my last blog), the rains have been pummeling the forests so much that there barely was a dry season. The forest needs no relief from the rain! In May, sometimes the rain begins to let up as if anticipating the dry season that normally begins in June and July. We hold our breaths and hope that the rain will continue. So far in 2011 it has.

Rain is so important for the tropical rain forests of Borneo that I decided that, after over one year plus of blog inactivity, my first blog for 2011 will mention two phenomena that are very important for Borneo’s rain forests, one positive: the rain, the other negative:fire. It has been the rain that has kept the fires out of Tanjung Puting over the last one and a half years. Let the rain continue. My blog begins anew on that hopeful note.

They say that a photo is worth a thousand words. Here is the equivalent of a few thousand words: photos of the fires that OFI is facing and fighting in 2009. The extreme droughts that enable human-made fires to blaze throughout Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) and Sumatra seem to be much more frequent than they ever used to be. The last El Nino was in 2006 when over 50 of our OFI assistants fought the fires for almost two months before the fires were brought to a stop.

Some scientists believe that the increasing frequency of El Nino years is related to global climate change. Having lived in Borneo for several decades I suspect that this belief is true.

The eastern part of Tanjung Puting National Park, which is directly next to palm oil plantations, burned in 2006, making it particularly vulnerable to fire again in 2009. It is in this critical area of double jeoparty that the above photos of OFI rangers fighting the fires were taken. Once forest is repeatedly burned, secondary succession is deflected and it is very difficult for the tropical rain forest to return.

At least one thousand of the six thousand wild orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park and its vicinity live on the eastern side of the Park where the fires are currently burning. It is crucial that these fires be stopped for the sake of wild orangutan populations and all wildlife in the area. OFI is doing all it can to make this happen but we need help and funding.

OFI rangers fighting fire on eastern side of Tanjung Puting National Park

The fire near our guard post is on the verge of being eliminated. Notice that the fires burn where we do not have guardposts. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The map tells the story. Words are not that necessary.

Hot spots in and around the vicinity of Tanjung Puting Park as of the end of August 2009

The fires are blazing again in Kalimantan! I sit weary and exhausted in front of my computer but not nearly as weary as the OFI (Orangutan Foundation International) assistants who have been fighting these fires for several weeks now since the end of August. We were warned that 2009 would be an El Nino year for months but the persistent rains which fell in July belied the situation. It wasn’t until mid-August that the sun took on that deadly red glow as it hung in the grey sky, the glow that tells us this will be no normal dry season. When the sky takes on the colors of a Japanese print we know. We know that it is going to be a long severe season of drought.

The Park is ablaze but not where the tourists go. They may smell the smoke and see the haze in the sky but Camp Leakey and the forests around it remain untouched because we are there and have been for 38 years. It is where the farmers work and where the enclaved villages are located within the Park that the fires burn out of control. It is also on the Park boundaries next to the palm oil plantations that the worst fires burn.

In 2006 during the last El Nino year OFI and its partners battled fires that ultimately destroyed about 15% of Tanjung Puting National Park. We are now trying to prevent the same. We are fighting the fires shoulder to shoulder with our partners in the Forestry Department and we need all the support that we can get.