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The government of Denpasar is targeting to restore the badly damaged natural environment of Serangan island by establishing a turtle refuge as part of plans to create the island into a marine sports center.
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The central government has announced plans to restore some 11 heavily poluted rivers as part of the governments actions on climate change. A spokesperson for the Department of Environment said that the program would be one of the highest priorities of the newly installed government.
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In a survey that has cost some 250 million Rupiah (195,000 euro), the botanic garden in Cibodas and LIPI (the Indonesian Institute of Sciences), has concluded that for every tree that is cut down, at least ten new seedlings have to planted to replace it. The seedlings should be put in the earth before the tree is actually cut, realizing that Indonesians normally don't tend to clean up their work after they have started.
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Climate change is contributing to more frequent and deadlier natural disasters, and governments need to speed up measures to mitigate their impact, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, warns.
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The rain forest in the Kerinci Seblat national park on the island of Sumatra is disappearing fast. Illegal logging which continues in the area and understaffing at the security department of the national park are pointed to as the main causes. Some 500 hectares of previously untouched forests have now turned into wastelands.
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Thieves have killed a tiger in the Taman Rimba Zoo in Jambi last Saturday. The female Sumatran tiger was killed before the body was stolen from the zoo, according to local authorities. The incident happened around three in the morning. The police chief in Jambi, Posma Lubis, said that it was most likely that the tiger was killed and stolen to be sold via an international network. There was no sign of damage to the cage.
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The regional police in Riau has successfully seized a shipment of over 10 tonnes of wood that has been illegally cut. The wood that was taken from the forests of Riau were destined for Malaysia. The head of the marine police in Riau, Zainal Paliwang, explained that wood in various sizes has been seized from three boats that routinely operate the waters of Kampung Pacul in the district of Bengkalis.
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The Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Indonesia, Conservation International and Yayasan Keanekaragaman Hayati Indonesia (KEHATI) announced today that they have concluded the largest debt-for-nature swap under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA) since its passage in 1998. The agreements will reduce Indonesia’s debt payments to the United States by nearly $30 million over the next eight years. In return, the Government of Indonesia has committed these funds to support grants to protect and restore the country’s tropical forests.
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Thick smoke caused by forest fires in the province of Riau on the island of Sumatra has hampered school activities. A number of schools in the district of Rokan Hilir has been forced to close down. Already a number of schools has been closed down, also in the neighboring district of Bangko, where almost all elementary schools have been closed.
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A change of color of Lake Kelimutu, which is located in a volcanic crater in the district of Ende in the province of East Nusa Tenggara is possibly a sign that a disaster is about to happen. One of the lakes is changing color, which causes locals to speculate about what will happen next. According to locals the change in color has been visible since just two days.
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Natural gas leaks have sprung up in the village of Karang Lewas, in the district of Banyumas in Central Java. At the moment there are five locations where natural gas appears from the earth, where earlier this morning there were only two locations. Local police has taped off the areas concerned to prevent accidents from happening as hundreds of villagers gather around the gas leaks as a free form of entertainment.
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Conservationists have discovered a large population of orangutans in the eastern part of the island of Borneo which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The most conservative estimates put the population count at several hundred, but biologists say it could possibly be in the region of 2,000.
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Until January 2008, no one knew it existed, or if they did, they weren’t talking. A husband and wife team who were part owners of a dive shop in Ambon City, Indonesia, along with the shop’s dive guide, took the first known photos of the fish. They shared the photos with Ted Pietsch, a marine scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who said last year that the critter appeared to represent an unknown family (in the biological-classification sense) of angler fish.
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Around 15,000 hectares of community forest in Central Kalimantan will be cleared for the expansion of palm oil plantations, threatening the livelihood of more than 2,500 people. The community of Tura, Tumbang Tanjung and Tumbang Lahang villages along the Katingan river, are concerned of the impending disaster that will come when their forest is taken away by the companies. Their apprehension is expressed in a film, titled "Petak Danum Itah" or "Our Homeland", made by the community themselves with the support of the Centre for Orangutan Protection was premiered in Jakarta today.
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Indonesia's efforts to clean up the Citarum River, known as the world's most-polluted river, received a major boost as the Asian Development Bank approved a 500 million-U.S. dollar loan to the country on Friday. The Citarum River Basin Territory supports a population of 28 million people, delivers 20 percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product, and provides 80 percent of the surface water supply to Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta.
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Indonesia, which has been losing forests at a rapid pace in recent years, plans to plant
100 million trees across the country this year in an effort to limit deforestation, a forestry official said on Wednesday. Indonesia has lost an estimated 70 percent of its original
frontier forest, but it still has a total forest area of more than 91 million hectares, with a host of exotic plants and animals waiting to be discovered.
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The tiny Furby-like pygmy tarsier, presumed to be extinct, was found during a recent expedition to Indonesia. And the cuddly, huge-eyed nocturnal critter is the very definition of cute. "They always look like they have a perpetual smile on their face, which adds to the attraction," says physical anthropologist Sharon Gursky-Doyen, who found the presumed lost species.
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BeritaBali.com reports that observations made the Bali Environmental Agency conclude that sedimentation has decreased the depth of Bali's famous Batur lake by one meter over the past five years. Experts blame the rapid sedimentation on the diversion of surrounding land from natural jungle habitat to agricultural pursuits.
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A rare species of deer has been rediscovered in Sumatra 78 years after it was last sighted, reports Fauna & Flora International. The deer, known as the Sumatran muntjac (Muntiacus montanus), was rescued from a snare during an anti-poaching patrol by the Kerinci-Seblat National Park Tiger Protection Team in Kerinci-Seblat National Park. Fauna & Flora International (FFI) subsequently caught two more of the deer on film using camera traps.
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16 boxes about to be boarded on a departing Qantas flight were intercepted by local authorities who found thousands of rare shells hidden among local handicrafts and textiles. Authorities estimate the value of the protected sea shells to be in the hundreds of millions of Rupiahs.
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Greenpeace ship Esperanza (Spanish for "hope") will be kicking off the Indonesian leg of its "Forests for Climate' tour from 6th October to 15th November 2008. The ship arrives in in Jayapura, Papua on 6th November to shine the spotlight on what is seen as
the last frontier of intact ancient forest in Indonesia.
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The legendary Komodo dragon, a giant carnivorous lizard that feasts on water buffalo, and occasionally even attacks humans, is disappearing from its limited habitat, according to zoologists. The dragons, which grown to three meters long and weigh as much as 165 kilograms, are found only on Komodo and a handful of neighbouring islands in central Indonesia. Already endangered, their numbers are dwindling as a result of habitat destruction and hunting of their prey.
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Sumatra's endangered elephants and tigers are to get a boost from an Indonesian government move to expand one of their last havens. Speaking in Jakarta, head of WWF in Indonesia, Mubariq Ahmad says a four-year-old national park on the island will be more than doubled to 86,000 hectares.
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The mangrove forest conservation area in Wonorejo on Surabaya's east coast has 140 species of Java island's biggest birds. Bambang DH, mayor of Surabaya, said here last week end of the 140 bird species, about 84 are categorized as sedentary , 12 species as protected and 44 as migrant species.
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Tempo Interaktif estimates that as much as 25% of Bali's shorelines have suffered significant erosion caused by sea waves. Of the total shorelines abrased by high waves the government of Bali has only been able to take remedial steps on 53% of the affected beaches.
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Greenpeace today welcomed Unilever’s call for a moratorium on rainforest destruction in Indonesia, that is wiping out orang-utans and devastating the climate.
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Looks like a frog. Swims like a frog. But doesn't croak. A flattened, brown, aquatic species from Borneo has just become the only frog shown to have no lungs. The species, Barbourula kalimantanensis, is so rare that until last year only two specimens were known to science and no herpetologist had seen it alive, says David Bickford of the National University of Singapore.
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Peatland forests in Indonesia are continuously destructed by palm oil industry, although the government has stopped issuing new permits for new plantations at peatland ecosystem, a Greenpeace campaigner said here Monday. Hapsoro, Greenpeace campaigner for Southeast Asia, said that the Greenpeace team has found a new plantation opened without permits on peatland forest in Indonesia's Riau province at Sumatra Island.
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Two field scientists from the University of Indonesia have found a new bird species, Zosterops Somadikartai or Togian white-eye, in the Togian Islands, Gulf of Tomini, Central Sulawesi province, local press reported Saturday.
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The Jakarta Post reports that a team representing Bali is expected to visit the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris soon in a continuing effort to lobby for three sites in Bali to be names as World Heritage Sites.
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Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.
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Laws protecting the critically endangered Sumatran tiger have failed to prevent tiger body parts from being openly sold in Indonesia, according to a Traffic report released Wednesday.
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Scientists have found two mammals believed new to science on the latest expedition to an almost lost world in Indonesia's Papua province Conservation International (CI)said in a statement on Monday. Scientists from CI and the Indonesia Institute of Science (LIPI)visited the Foja Mountains in June 2007, following a first trip to the area in late 2005 that saw them discover dozens of new plants and animals.
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Papua want to preserve parts of its rain forest in exchange for help in cash money to help slow down global warming. These were the words of the governor at the U.N. climate talks. "We have decided to set aside a large part of our conversion forests to save the planet," said governor Barnabas Suebu during climate talks in Bali. Currently conversion forests are marked to be used as palm oil or pulp plantations.
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Leaders from many governments started to arrive in Bali on Sunday for what is expected to be a lengthly and contentious negotiation on how to fight global warming. It is believed that global warming can cause a devastating rise in sea levels, which would send hundreds of millions of people into poverty and cause mass extinction of animals.
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The Indonesian government will advance a bold proposal to preserve tropical forests at the coming United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) to be held in Bali December 3-14, 2007.
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About 189 countries have said they will participate in the climate change conference which will be held in Bali, Indonesia from 3 to 15 December. This information was released by Minister of Environment Rahmat Witoelar on Monday. The minister told that some countries would send their prime ministers; over 120 ministers will be present at the conference which will be attended by more than 10,000 representatives.
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Indonesia will attempt to repair its reputation as one of the biggest contributors to deforestation by planting 79 million trees in one day next month. The initiative is part of a global campaign to plant a billion trees and will precede a UN summit on climate change in Bali in December. “Everybody, residents and officials from the lowest unit of the Government to the President, will take part in this movement,” Ahmad Fauzi Masud, a spokesman for the Forestry Ministry, said
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Four orangutans, which were most likely abducted from the jungles of Borneo, have been returned to Indonesia on Friday after spending several years in a zoo in Malaysia and a theme park. Two of the great apes, Dodi and Linda, were send to a zoo in the state of Malacca for four years after wildlife officials seized them from another location on the suspicion that they had been smuggled to Malaysia, told Mohamad Nawayai Yasak, the director of Malacca Zoo.
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About 60 so-called bekantan monkey (nasalis larvatus) were found living in a group in an undamaged forest. Researchers from the South Kalimantan devision of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), found them. The finding of these endangered bekantan monkey just last month was unexpected as the albino mammal has been threatened with extinction according to Siswoyo, chairman of the BKSDA there.
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Wahjudi Wardojo, director general for forestry research at Indonesia's Forestry Ministry, told Reuters that industrialized countries will need to provide financial incentives for tropical countries to preserve ecosystems - like peatlands - that sequester large amounts of carbon.
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The East Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) is exploring the possibilities of making parts of the Mahakam river into a conservation area to protect the Irrawaddy dolpins (orcaella brevirostris) against extinction according to an official.
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Indonesian Minister for Environment Rachmat Witoelar said Indonesia will not allow palm oil producers to clear primary forests for establishing plantations, reports Bloomberg. "Expansion of palm oil plantations will not be allowed to sacrifice natural forests," Witoelar said in an interview yesterday. "They will be planted in lots that are already empty. There are plenty of these, 18 million hectares of them."
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The Indonesian government is returning 17 pygmy kangaroos to the rainforests of Papua after acquiring them from illegal traders and private zoos in the last few years. It is not known how many of the marsupials, which can grow to one meter long, still survive in the wild. Officials say the animals are being prepared to survive in their own natural habitat in an animal rescue center in West Java.
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Fishermen in Indonesia have captured a rare coelacanth fish in the waters off Sulawesi. The fish, which is about one meter long, was caught in the nets of fishermen just north of Manado. It died a few hours later. Coelacanth are known to be one of the oldest species of fish in the world.
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High tidal waves - not tsunami's - have struck many coastlines across the western part of Indonesia, forcing hundreds out of their homes after water destroyed property. On the island of Bali, tourists were warned to stay away from main beaches in Kuta. In nearby Jimbaran, fishing boats were damaged.
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Indonesia is to rehabilitate 59.2 million hectares of damaged forests throughout the country, according to Malam Sambat Kaban, Indonesia's Forestry Minister. The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) reports that the country has set aside 330 million euro for 2007 to finance the planting of 2 billion seedlings on 2 million hectares of land along 318 rivers in all provinces in the country.
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Greenpeace is using a novel marketing ploy to raise awareness about forest loss in Indonesia: the Guinness Book of World Records. The green group has convinced the publisher of to recognize Indonesia as the "country with the fastest rate of forest destruction on the planet." According to Greenpeace, the text will read:
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Rachmat Witoelar, Minister of Environment, has proposed a ban on the sale of new cars in a radical bid to slash pollution levels in the rapidly growing urban areas in the country. He said the plan could be launched if new nationwide anti-pollution measures did not improve the air quality. "If there is no progress in restoring air quality, we will stop (new car sales)," Witoelar said. "It is a bitter pill to take, but it is for the sake of public health."
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In ten years the increasing marine crisis in Indonesia is believed to totally destroy the country's marine resources. The crisis began when it became harder to find fish of certain species on the local markes, which caused a drastic increase of the price of some fish. This was told by M. Riza Damanik, Coastal and Marine Campaign Manager and National Executive of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi).
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Yesterday Indonesia made an appeal to consumers in the world to stop buying products that are made from illegally logged wood. It also said that rich countries should pay the poor to preserve forests in the battle against global warming. Environmentalists say that illegal logging in Indonesia strips 2.1 million hectares, with a value of around 3.5 billion euro, of forest every year.
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Indonesia is only behind the United States and China in greenhouse gas emissions. A study showed released by the World Bank and the British government last Friday. It's high rank is primarily due to its high deforestation rate - about 85 percent (2,563 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent results from forest fires and clearing. Remaining emissions from energy, agriculture and waste only reach 451 million tonnes.
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The WWF has said that a clouded leopard found in tropical rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra is in fact a new species of big cat. The cat was originally seen as the same species as those on the Southeast Asian mainland, but genetic tests have shown otherwise.
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The government plans to rehabilitate a large peatland in Central Kalimantan which was converted to an agricultural area during the reign of former president Soearto. This project has caused widespread damage to the environment, as was told by an official. "We have approval, in principle, from the president to rehabilitate the 'One Million Hectare Peatland' but we still are awaiting the necessary presidential decree to start," told Central Kalimantan governor Agustin Teras Narang.
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Twenty new species of rays and sharks have been found in Indonesian waters during a five-year study of catches at local fish markets. The study, organized by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, is the first real in-depth look at sharks and rays in Indonesia after Dutch scientist Pieter Bleeker described more than 1100 species between 1842 and 1860.
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An historic declaration to conserve the "Heart of Borneo" was officially signed today
between the three Bornean governments - Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia. The tri-country declaration will conserve and sustainably manage one of the most important centers of biological diversity in the world. The Heart of Borneo is an area of equatorial rainforest larger than Kansas, covering nearly a third of the island.
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Rising sea levels because of global warming stand to inundate around 2,000 islands in Indonesia by 2030, the country's environment minister said Monday. The assessment by Rachmat Witoelar was the government's bleakest yet of the effects of global warming on the Southeast Asian nation that is made up of some 18,000 islands, most of them unpopulated.
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Giant multinational coffee-shop chain Starbucks denied a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) allegation Thursday that it purchased illegally-planted coffee in Lampung province, while Switzerland-based food producer Nestle said it regretted buying the beans. Ratih Gianda, head of investor relations for PT Mitra Adi Perkasa, Starbucks' Indonesian partner, said in a written statement sent to The Jakarta Post that the WWF report alleging that Starbucks had bought illegally-planted coffee from the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in southern Sumatra was inaccurate.
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Fears of strengthening monsoons in Asia could spell trouble for parts of Australia and Indonesia which will see longer and more frequent droughts in the future, according to a study published in Nature on Thursday. By examining the chemical makeup of corals off Indonesia's Sumatra island, researchers found that stronger monsoons in Asia 6,500 years ago led to greater ocean cooling in the eastern Indian Ocean, which reduced evaporation and, in turn increased the droughts in Indonesia and Australia.
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Illegal coffee bean growing in an Indonesian wildlife park could wipe out already endangered local tigers, elephants and rhinos within 10 years, the WWF conservation group warned on Wednesday. The coffee growers are clearing vegetation in Bukit Barisan Selatan park, a World Heritage Site on the southern tip of Sumatra Island, to make room for the crop which brings much needed export revenue to the impoverished region.
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The European Union and Indonesia, home to most of the world's orangutans, have agreed to negotiate a pact aimed at helping stop illegal logging which is threatening their habitat, the EU said on Tuesday. The voluntary accord, once complete, will provide assurance that Indonesian forest products imported to the EU are verified as legal. The EU is the third largest market for Indonesian timber after China and the United States.
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The deforestation rate in Indonesia has reached two million hectares annually while its reforestation rate is only around 600,000 hectares per year, a local official said here on Wednesday. The deforestation rate has tended to increase from year to year, Dr. Harri Santosa, secretary of the organizing committee of the National Forest and Land Rehabilitation Program, said.
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Dozens of new species of animals and plants including a catfish with protruding teeth and a tree frog with striking bright green eyes have been found in the past year in the forests of Borneo, a WWF report said on Tuesday. The discoveries include 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species, the conservation group said.
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Forty-eight orangutans smuggled into Thailand and which have been stranded in the country following a military coup will be repatriated to Indonesia this week, an official said Sunday. Pornchai Pratumratanatan, chief of a wildlife research center that has been sheltering the animals for several months, said the Indonesian government will send a C-130 military transport plane to pick up the apes on Tuesday.
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The United States has signed a pact to help stop illegal logging in Indonesia, home to most of the world's orangutans and many other endangered species, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Friday. "A core part of our international trade agenda must be combating illegal trade, including protecting endangered species," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement. "The United States and Indonesia are partnering to combat illegal logging and the trade associated with it."
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Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics present shocking information on climate change caused by wetland destruction in Indonesia. Huge areas of wet peatland forests are drained and logged. Drainage starts a rapid process of decomposition, made worse by annual peat fires that last for months. Together they contribute large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Recently calculated emissions of greenhouse gases unexpectedly reveal that Indonesia has the third largest emissions of the world.
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ndonesia, land of earthquakes and volcanos, is literally sitting on top of the solution for its energy needs: Vast reservoirs of hot water deep beneath the earth's crust can be harnessed to generate electricity. What's more, it's a clean, renewable energy source.
Yet the country continues to import millions of barrels of oil and fuel annually. Legal uncertainties, financial risks and government bureaucracy have repelled international investors from developing its geothermal resources.
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The Sutiyoso administration plans to revise the Jakarta Spatial Plan to improve the quality of life in the city and respond to environmental factors. "The revision is aimed at preventing further environmental destruction. Governor Sutiyoso himself wants the revision to come into effect in 2007," Jakarta Environmental Management Board (BPLHD) secretary Junani Kartawiria told a public discussion held by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) on Thursday.
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Four wild elephants have been found dead in the jungles of Indonesia's Sumatra island, and a conservationist said Friday he suspected they were deliberately poisoned.
Nurcholis Fadli from the conservation group WWF said the animals were found on Thursday in separate places near Segati, a village in Riau province 900 kilometers (600 miles) northwest of the capital Jakarta.
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Scientists said on Monday they found two types of shark, exotic "flasher" fish and corals among 52 new species in seas off Indonesia, confirming the western Pacific as the richest marine habitat on earth. They urged more protection for seas around the Bird's Head peninsula at the western end of New Guinea island from threats including mining and dynamite fishing that can smash coral reefs.
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) are two institutions allegedly engaged in destroying the forests in Indonesia and in other developing countries. "The role of the IMF and WB is in the channeling of funds to companies engaged in investment without first studying the impact of the application of their policies," Greenpeace activist Red Costantino said in a meeting on "International People`s Forum Versus IMF and WB" here on Sunday.
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Four Javan rhinos were born recently in Indonesia, the first known births in three years, raising hope for the future of the endangered species, WWF-Indonesia said Friday. At least four different footprints were discovered by a WWF team in Ujung Kulon national park, at the far western end of Java island, where nearly all of the surviving Javan rhinoceroses roam.
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The Jakarta, Banten and West Java administrations have agreed to jointly rehabilitate the three big rivers that are the provinces' main sources of clean water. The Jakarta administration will be responsible for restoring the Ciliwung River, Banten province will handle the Cisadane River, while West Java will deal with Citarum River. The Jakarta Environment Management Board (BPLHD) said Tuesday that each province would be responsible for the quality and quantity of water flowing through the rivers.
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Mohammed Sidik used to sell goats to Komodo National Park to feed to the wild Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, in a gory display for tourists. Park officials banned the practice a decade ago because they worried that the dragons were becoming lazy. Now the 10-foot-long predators waddle three miles to this squalid coastal village, raid Sidik's herd and eat his goats for free.
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Scientists working off Indonesia's Sulawesi island have photographed five primitive fish once thought to have died along with the dinosaur, a newspaper reported Tuesday. The fish, called a coelacanth, was first found alive in 1938 off the coast of Africa. It had been thought to have become extinct some 65 million years ago, and the find of the so-called "living fossil" ignited worldwide interest.
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Scientists in Indonesia have discovered a new and mysterious species of snake in the depths of rain forest-clad Borneo which has the ability to change colours, the WWF conservation group has said. The half-meter long snake, known locally as a "mud snake", was collected by a WWF consultant and a German reptile expert in the wetlands along the Kapuas River in West Kalimantan more than a year ago. "It has since been established that it is really a new species," the WWF's Iwan Wibisono told AFP.
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With two-and-a-half years to go until the start of the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing China, the Chinese government and Olympic Committee have recently placed a $1 billion rush order for endangered rainforest timbers from Indonesia's Papua province to be used in construction for the games. A proposed timber processing factory would industrially harvest 800,000 cubic meters of the famous and threatened merbau (intsia spp) rainforest timbers, to be exported to China for the construction of sports facilities.
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The ongoing discussion about the urgent need to increase the education budget and Vice President Jussuf Kalla's irritation with Indonesian backwardness despite the obvious natural wealth of the country, as reported in this paper on April 5, highlights a problem that is not limited to Indonesia, but harms this country and coincidentally a number of other Muslim countries disproportionally.
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In the not-so-distant future, the murky waters of the Ciliwung River will flow clean and bright -- and be good enough to drink. Or that is what the government envisions in an ambitious, long-term plan that will upgrade the quality of water in the notoriously polluted river. It also plans to clear the riverbanks of unlicensed residences, who are blamed for the bulk of pollution.
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The number of Sumatran elephants in Indonesia's Riau province has declined by nearly 75 per cent in the past 11 years and without improved management, they face likely extinction in another five years, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Wednesday.
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"Don't just blame us for stripping the forest -- first take a look at what local people have done to conserve it," said Haji Naim, 58, one of a group of farmers standing at the foot of the hilly Murhum Forest Park in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi. Along with the others, Haji is cultivating crops in the protected forest park -- part of what he calls an "agroforestry" system.
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SCIENTISTS have found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants. "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the US, Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in West Papua.
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Fishermen try to outdo each other with tales of the biggest catch. But scientists say they've discovered the smallest fish in the wetlands of Southeast Asia. The species, Paedocypris progenetica, is a distant cousin of the carp. An adult is about the size of a large mosquito. Researchers used a special stereoscopic microscope to measure it accurately.
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The government announced a list of the country's dirtiest cities for the first time on Friday in a bid to encourage municipal administrations to clean up their acts, and their heavily polluted urban areas. Previous governments had only made the names of the cleanest cities public.
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Researchers from the WWF conservation group may have made an extremely rare discovery of a new species of mammal in the dense forests of central Borneo, the organisation says. The carnivorous mammal, slightly larger than a domestic cat with dark red fur and a long bushy tail, was photographed twice by an automated camera at night in 2003 on the Indonesian side of the island, the WWF said on Tuesday.
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Until five years ago, the coastal areas along the southern beaches of Bantul Regency were dry and infertile. No plants seemed to be able to survive the strong, burning wind and the land lay parched and barren. Agricultural efforts in the area were sporadic and often failed.
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Scientists say tsunami damage on reefs close to the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake epicenter pales in comparison with human-caused damage. Researchers from Queensland Australia`s James Cook University, the Wildlife Conservation Society-Indonesia Program, and Indonesia`s Syiah Kuala University say tsunami damage was occasionally spectacular, but surprisingly limited particularly when compared with damage from chronic human misuse.
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The Ministry of Agriculture will propose an additional budget of Rp 4 trillion (US$396 million) to repair the country's irrigation system, minister Anton Apriyantono said on Sunday. "The fund is needed to maintain the country's tertiary irrigation systems which are in poor condition," he said.
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The government says a comprehensive assessment process is underway on the plight of the orangutan due to mass deforestation, but it will avoid scaring off foreign investors.
Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Kaban said over the weekend that his office was in talks with other authorities and the government of Malaysia on the decreasing number of orangutans -- Asia's only great ape -- which are only found in Kalimantan, parts of Malaysia and Brunei, and in Sumatra.
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A choking haze from fires, most of them in Indonesia, is blanketing large parts of peninsular Malaysia, creating health problems, threatening tourism and disrupting one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Following are some facts about the haze, which affects parts of Southeast Asia every year.
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Cut Anita peered from the open flap of her sunbaked tent one recent day. She watched keenly as a carpenter hammered a wood plank less than five feet away. Another sawed a board in two, freeing the sweet fragrance of forest hardwood. Her new home was taking shape before her, and she dared not leave. "Someone else might take it," the doleful, wide-eyed woman said from the Red Cross tent erected on the concrete foundation of her former home, which was destroyed by the Dec. 26 tsunami.
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Indonesia's president pledged to wage war against deforestation, promising harsh penalties for officials involved in the illegal logging that continues to destroy massive areas of woodland annually. Both foreign and Indonsian perpatrators must be "severely punished" as they cost the country millions of dollars, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on a visit to the Borneo island province of East Kalimantan, one of the hard-hit areas.
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A Singaporean vessel carrying 200 tonnes of oil waste which sank last week off Indonesia's Riau islands has begun to spill its cargo, threatening fishing grounds, officials said Wednesday. The ship went down on July 25 as it tried to dock at a town in the Karimun region of the island chain close to Singapore, but the extent of the pollution was not known, said environment ministry spokesman Sudaryono.
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Six ministers launched the National Forest and Land Rehabilitation Movement at Jl. Lingkar Selatan, Bantul district, on Friday. Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Yusuf Kalla, home affairs minister Hari Sabarno, forestry minister M Prakoso, education minister Malik Fajar, settlement and regional infrastructure Minister Sunarno and state minister for the environment Nabiel Makarim planted samenea saman trees together in a nearby area as a symbol of the reforestation campaign, which will cover 29 river basins in 15 provinces.
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Legislators urged the government on Tuesday to abandon its plan to continue construction on a Rp 1 trillion (US$1.2 million) highway cutting through Aceh province in Sumatra. "We do not see any urgency to build the road, at the cost of destroying the Leuser ecosystem," said legislator Zaenal Arifin on Tuesday, echoing what environmentalists said recently.
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An unspecified number of hot springs have cropped up in several locations on Mount Ciremai, following a series of tectonic and volcanic earthquakes in Kuningan district, West Java province early this month, an official has said. "The hot springs' water was more than 55 degrees Celsius," spokesman for the Office of Volcanology and Geology, Didi Supriadi, said here Friday night.
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Illegal logging is costing Indonesia US$600 million annually, Forestry Ministry Secretary General Wahyudi Wardoyo said after opening the second Asia Forest Partnership (AFP) meeting here. "The loss does not include the ecological destruction of forests and the environment, as well as moral degradation," Wahyudi said on Wednesday, quoting a World Bank report.
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Acid rain, hazardous dumping of industrial, fecal waste and other pollutants are having an alarming impact on Indonesia's environment and population, the World Bank reports.
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The Asian Development Bank has approved a $US600,000 grant to help combat worsening air pollution in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The technical assistance grant will be used to prepare the 'Blue Skies' project, which will promote clean vehicle fuel in Jakarta.
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