Developing rapid assessment methods for measuring flora and fauna integrity of lowland dipterocarp forests in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Ferry Slik

The NWO priority programme 'Ecology of Disturbed Ecosystems' has yielded a large amount of information on flora and fauna forest disturbance indicators in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The results of these studies provide valuable tools for assessing the effects of forest disturbance on species diversity. The value of these results would further increase if they were integrated into a single survey method that describes forest structure, species diversity and its recovery in a way that is useful for forest management and land-use planning. My objective is therefore to develop a rapid assessment method for fauna and flora integrity of lowland dipterocarp forest based on newly and previously collected data from Kalimantan within the NWO programme 'Biodiversity of Disturbed Ecosystems'. This will involve sampling of the vegetation structure and plant species diversity in several locations throughout South and East Kalimantan. Additionally complete bird species inventies will be carried out in these locations. The forest disturbance types included in this study are selectively logged forest, burnt forest and forests cleared for shifting-cultivation. For each disturbance type time series will be sampled which cover a time span of circa 20 to 30 years since disturbance. Combined with the previously collected data this will give a very thorough description of the effects of different types of disturbance on the forest structure and biodiversity. As such it provides a good basis for the proposed rapid assessment method.

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Last updated 3 August 2001