Birdwatching in Brunei, Borneo

This video says about itself:

April 29, 2013

The Sandakan Borneo Bird Club is proud to announce the 1st Borneo Bird Race to be held on 31st May to 9th June 2013 in collaboration with Brunei Tourism and Sabah Tourism Board. This event is specially organized for Birders and Photographers primarily, with an offshoot of promoting Borneo Island as one of the premier nature tourism destination in Asia. This inaugural race will expand over the years including Sarawak and Kalimantan of Indonesia.

The Race — an overview

For the first time, we launch the first international Borneo Bird Race 2013, where 10 countries travel more than 1000 kilometres in search of more than 400 species of birds in a wide range of habitats from the coastal regions, freshwater swamps, lowland forests, to the hills and mountain ranges of Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei. At the end of the day, each team will enjoy the beauty of this land as they count the numbers of recorded species, and the longest list shall earn the prestigious “Bornean Bristlehead Cup”.

Race starts from Ulu Temburong National Park, Brunei then continues to Kinabalu Park and concludes at Rainforest Discovery Centre, Sepilok, Sabah where the 5th Borneo Bird Festival is simultaneously held.

The key objectives of the race are:
1. To promote Borneo as one of the premier bird watching destination in the world;
2. To network with birdwatching fraternities around Asian region and the world;
3. To increase arrival of eco-tourists and birdwatchers to Borneo;
4. Create awareness and conservation of the bird species unique to Borneo to the local Community and to the global birding fraternities;
5. Foster closer integration and harmony through nature festival of the neighboring States of Borneo, Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan, Indonesia;
6. To enhance and complement the “Heart of Borneo” initiative – Tourism Program;
7. Further development of naturalist guide and birdwatching guide.
8. To create and further improve nature tourism facilities and infrastructure.

From BruDirect.com:

Borneo Bird Race To Rope In Nature Enthusiasts From Around Region

Tuesday, 14 May 2013 07:19

Siti Hajar

Bandar Seri Begawan – Brunei Darussalam’s tourism plan will soon gain better momentum following the country’s wise investment that will see the pooling of efforts between two nations that aim to bring in nature enthusiasts from around the region.

Within the next few weeks starting May 31 until June 9, Brunei Tourism with co-hosts Sabah Tourism Board and Sandakan Borneo Bird Club has arranged to bring-in two dozen registered bird watchers from across seven Asian countries who will take part in the inaugural Borneo Bird Race 2013 that spans across the Abode of Peace and neighbouring Sabah.

A press conference chaired by Brunei Tourism Acting Director Mariani Haji Sabtu; Sabah Tourism Board Chairman Dato Seri Tengku Zainal Adlin; Cede Prudente, Chairperson of the Borneo Bird Festival and Race; Mohd Vol for the country’s Nature Festival; and Roger Rajah, Executive Board for the World Federation of Tourist Guide Association; explained that the event has been pegged to become a source for further economic diversification through eco-tourism. …

In total, the whole of Borneo spans an area of 743,330 square kilometres and is home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world at 130 million years old, and shelters 13 primate species, 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees, 221 species of terrestrial mammals and more than 680 species of resident and migratory birds.

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• Setornis criniger (animalsoftheworldblog.wordpress.com)
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• Bill Oddie: Why I was chucked out of HSBC headquarters over Bankwatch film (independent.co.uk)
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Save Indonesia’s Sumatran orangutans

From Avaaz.org:

Dear friends,

It’s the last place on Earth where endangered orangutans, tigers, rhinos and elephants roam free together. But mining companies and big agriculture want to rip the rainforest to shreds. If a million people call on Indonesia’s President to silence the chainsaws in the next three days, we can save this precious habitat. Sign now:

I live and work in the last place on Earth where endangered orangutans, rhinos, elephants, and tigers still roam together — but it’ll be bulldozed to bits unless our President hears our call and steps in to save this unique habitat.

Right now in one of Indonesia’s most pristine and untouched forests, a local Governor wants to let mining and palm oil companies move in to decimate areas the size of a million football fields! And the national Forestry Ministry looks like it might let him unless the President steps in to reject this orangutan-killing plan.

We know the President wants to be seen as a keen conservationist, but we need to tell him his green reputation and possible future UN aspirations are on the line to ensure he does the right thing. We need to act fast — sign the urgent petition and tell everyone about this mortal threat to our majestic forest. If a million people sign in the next 3 days, I’ll ensure the President hears us:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_plan_to_kill_orangutans_cb2/?bHFhfab&v=24888

I know these forests well — I’ve been working as a conservation manager here since 2007, and received the Future for Nature Award 2013 for my work protecting large mammals in Sumatra, especially rhinos. This place holds the largest biodiversity in all of the Asia Pacific region, and parts of it are classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. But this new mining company-backed plan would lay waste to much of it, and would also threaten local communities with deadly landslides and flash floods! And if their habitat is destroyed it could decimate the last few orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos.

Two years ago, the President set up a national task force on deforestation, and signed a two-year logging moratorium after out of control slash and burn logging landed Indonesia in the global news as one of the top greenhouse gas emitters in the world. Thankfully, reports say the President has agreed to renew the moratorium this week, which has been a life insurance policy for so many critically endangered species. But even with the renewal, the Governor of Aceh could still rezone broad swathes of the rainforest for logging unless the President intervenes. The President has only a year and a half left in office, with some saying he’s hoping to transition into a top job at the United Nations, and we just want him to stick to his word. “Forests are so dear to my heart … losing our tropical rainforests would constitute the ultimate national, global and planetary disaster,” our president told other world leaders at a recent conference.

Mega-palm oil companies would love nothing more than to rip these trees from the ground, and the East Asia Minerals Corporation, based in Canada, was just found working behind the scenes to push through this plan! Countries like mine have a right to develop, but not at the expense of our priceless natural patrimony, and it should benefit, not harm, Indonesians.

Let’s tell the President there is an easy solution — step in to stop this forest-killing plan. Sign now and tell everyone — we don’t have long before the mining company invasion. Then if you’re on Twitter, send our Twitter-loving President a direct message after you sign:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_plan_to_kill_orangutans_cb2/?bHFhfab&v=24888

As an Avaaz member I’ve seen this community come together to protect forests and critically endangered species, from the Amazon in Ecuador and Brazil to elephants and rhinos threatened by poaching. Now it’s Indonesia’s turn — join us in saving this magical forest.

With hope,

Rudi Putra in Indonesia, with the whole Avaaz team

PS – Many Avaaz campaigns are started by members of our community! Start yours now and win on any issue – local, national or global: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23917

MORE INFORMATION:

Indonesia Moves Towards Approving Deforestation Plan in Aceh (Jakarta Globe)
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/nvironment/indonesia-moves-towards-approving-deforestation-plan-in-aceh/586752

Mining company working with Indonesian government to strip forest of protected status (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/17/mining-indonesian-forest

Govt to extend forestry moratorium over business objections: Deputy Minister (Jakarta Post)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/05/12/govt-extend-forestry-moratorium-over-business-objections-deputy-minister.html

President Yudhoyono promises to dedicate the next three years to protecting Indonesia’s forests (REDD monitor)
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/09/28/president-yudhoyono-promises-to-dedicate-the-next-three-years-to-protecting-indonesias-forests/

Conservation scientists: Aceh’s spatial plan a risk to forests, wildlife, and people (Mongabay)
http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0322-atbc-aceh-declaration.html

Indonesia’s Protected Rainforests Disappearing (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/indonesias-protected-rain_b_2944815.html

Aceh draft bylaw risks forests, say activists (Jakarta Post)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/03/14/aceh-draft-bylaw-risks-forests-say-activists.html

Rudi H. Putra: Winner 2013 Future For Nature
http://futurefornature.org/person/rudi-hadiansyah-putra-indonesia

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Indonesian prehistoric archaeological discoveries

This video is called Ancient Rock Art & Cave Paintings of the World.

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer:

66 Ancient Skeletons Found in Indonesian Cave

Date: 22 April 2013 Time: 12:55 PM ET

Talk about your archaeological jackpots: Researchers in Indonesia have reportedly discovered the 3,000-year-old remains of 66 people in a cave in Sumatra.

“Sixty-six is very strange,” Truman Simanjuntak of Jakarta’s National Research and Development Center for Archaeology said in a statement. He and his colleagues have never before found that many remains in a single cave, Simanjuntak added.

The cave is known as Harimaru or Tiger Cave, and also contains chicken, dog and pig remains. Thousands of years ago, the Tiger Cave and other limestone caverns nearby were occupied by Indonesia’s first farmers. They used the caves to bury their dead, explaining the 3,000-year-old cemetery unearthed by Simanjuntak’s team. The ancient farmers also manufactured tools in the caves.

And they apparently made art. Tiger Cave contains the first evidence of rock art from Sumatra, Simanjuntak said. And the cave is only partially excavated.

“There are still occupation traces deeper and deeper in the cave, where we have not excavated yet,” he said. “So it means the cave is very promising.”

The dates of the discoveries so far peg the cave’s occupation to a time when the Earth’s entire population was only about 50 million. The Zhou dynasty ruled China, and ancient Egypt’s prosperous New Kingdom era, during which Tutankamun reigned, was nearing its end. Though a first for Sumatra, the newly discovered rock art is brand-new by archaeological standards: The oldest rock art known is found in France and dates back 37,000 years.

Hands Across Time: Exploring the Rock Art of Borneo: here.

Prehistoric rock art, including scratchings of a half-man/half-lizard, has been found in the province of Papua Barat, Indonesia: here.

Lene Hara Cave (Timor) rock art: here.

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BP pollution corporation still not trusted

This video from the USA is called BP Oil Spill Footage Save the Birds: TruthVlog.

By Emily Swanson in the USA:

Poll Finds BP Public Image Still Tarnished 3 Years After Gulf Spill

Posted: 04/20/2013 9:44 am EDT

Three years after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans are still likely to have an unfavorable view of the company involved in the disaster, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. While BP has spent millions on ads touting the company’s cleanup efforts, it’s unclear whether those ads have really helped BP’s image.

According to the new poll, 43 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the multinational oil-and-gas company, and 31 percent have a favorable view. …

The Deepwater Horizon spill was a huge public relations debacle for BP, and the results of the poll help to show why. Even three years after the oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, 65 percent of respondents said they had heard a lot about it, while 27 percent said they had heard a little and only 8 percent said they had heard nothing at all.

Given that level of public awareness, it’s not surprising that BP has spent millions of dollars on advertising in response to the spill, including almost $100 million during the four months of the spill itself. (The company has also spent $42 billion to cover costs related to the spill.)

That advertising has reached a majority of Americans, according to the survey. Sixty-seven percent said they had seen BP’s TV ads about cleaning up after the spill, compared to the 33 percent who said either that they had not seen the ads (23 percent) or that they weren’t sure (10 percent).

But the survey found mixed evidence for how well those ads are working to improve BP’s public image.

Among those who had seen the commercials, 28 percent said their opinion of the company had thereby become more favorable and 11 percent said their opinion had become less favorable. But 59 percent said that seeing the ads had not changed their view at all.

The margin between unfavorable and favorable views of BP was 51 to 34 percent among those who had seen the ads and 32 to 24 percent among those who had not seen the ads. Forty-five percent of those who had not seen the ads said they weren’t sure how to rate BP.

Toxic Threads: Polluting Paradise. A story of big brands and water pollution in Indonesia: here.

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Orangutan corporate destruction victims rescued

This video says about itself:

April 5, 2013

The International Animal Rescue team have rescued several female orangutans from the ravaged forests of Indonesian Borneo. One female was half starved, her frightened baby clinging to her back, while another was lactating, but her baby was missing, presumed dead or stolen after a desperate search.

The footage shows the IAR team and members of the local forestry department (BKSDA) capturing the starving orangutans and translocating them to areas where there is sufficient food for their survival.

Wildlife Extra writes about this:

4 starving orangutans rescued after their forest was bulldozed

International Animal Rescue (IAR) releases dramatic footage showing rescue of starving orangutans

April 2013. International Animal Rescue‘s team in Indonesia has released dramatic footage showing how they rescued four starving orangutans from an oil palm concession in Borneo after their forest homes were bulldozed by a company belonging to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

IAR is now urging the company, Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA) to halt any further land clearing because it is believed that there are other orangutans trapped inside the concession that will die if they are not relocated.

Adi Irawan, Programme Director of IAR Indonesia, said: “We know there are more orangutans isolated in small patches of forest within this plantation along with other species of protected wildlife such as proboscis monkeys. All the animals in this plantation are under threat and therefore this company should stop all land clearing immediately, carry out habitat assessments and develop strategies to protect all the endangered wildlife in their estate.”

Large orangutan population

The concession is operated by BGA subsidiary PT Ladang Sawit Mas (LSM) in a forest buffer next to Gunung Palung National Park, an area that hosts one of the largest populations of Central Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) in West Kalimantan.

The footage shows the IAR team and members of the local forestry department (BKSDA) capturing the starving orangutans and translocating them to areas where there is sufficient food for their survival.

Karmele Llano Sanchez, Executive Director of IAR Indonesia, said: “We were appalled at the condition of these orangutans. All of them had gone through long periods of starvation before we rescued them, as the area where they were found, since the company had cleared most of the forest, was too small to provide them with sufficient food.

Baby disappeared

“One of the orangutans had lost her baby, probably killed before the rescue team arrived. More orangutans could die if this company does not take immediate action.”

The rescuers found evidence that the orangutans had been reduced to eating bark and stems because there was little fruit and few leaves available. As well as the lactating female whose baby could not be found, a pregnant female and a mother and baby were successfully translocated.

Alan Knight OBE, IAR Chief Executive said: “It is heartbreaking to see the state of these animals: they are weak from hunger and an increasingly desperate search for food. The only positive note is that, on this occasion, rather than chasing them away or killing them, the palm oil company did the right thing in contacting us so that we could move them to a place of safety.”

International Animal Rescue’s team in Indonesia has saved the lives of more than 60 orangutans. The majority are currently undergoing rehabilitation in IAR’s new centre in Sungai Awan, Ketapang, with a view to eventually being returned to protected areas of forest.

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Saudi Arabian royal xenophobia

This video is called Indonesian Maids Suffer Violent Abuse In Saudi Arabia.

By Jean Shaoul:

Saudi crackdown on migrants

10 April 2013

Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on so-called illegal immigrants caused millions of the country’s foreign workers to stay away from work last week, reportedly bringing services in all the major cities to a halt.

The authorities raided offices, shops, and residences where foreign workers were thought to be hiding, set up roadblocks and detained those who could not show they had a work visa. The crackdown was suspended on Saturday.

According to Saudi newspapers, the raids caused the closure of hundreds of schools as foreign teachers failed to show up for work. There were claims that officials destroyed the documents of some they stopped, with African workers being particularly targeted. Some businesses posted guards to look out for labour inspectors, while others kept the lights off.

The purpose of the raids was to enforce the policy of “Saudization” for jobs, whereby a definite quota of jobs in all businesses, small as well as large, is reserved for Saudi nationals. This is to reduce the reliance on migrant labour, believed to total 8 million workers, with up to 2 million to 3 million illegal workers. Companies that fail to employ the required number of Saudis are to be subject to a $640 fine per foreign worker, set to cost Saudi businesses more than $4 billion this year.

The foreign workforce includes skilled workers and unskilled workers, usually from South and South East Asia. Migrant workers labour for a pittance in dreadful conditions without rights, and are brutally exploited.

Behind this “Saudization” of jobs lies the increasing instability of the largest of the Arab Gulf states, one of Washington’s key allies in the oil- and gas-rich region and on whom it depends in its ongoing efforts to establish its unchallenged global hegemony.

Riyadh, along with the other Gulf monarchies, provides the crucial Sunni axis against Shi’ite Iran and its allies: Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraq’s powerful Shi’ite parties, which the US views as a regional threat. At the same time, the kingdom has functioned as the linchpin of social reaction during the mass protests that have shaken the Middle East. It has acted to crush all protests before they could spread to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

While the economy has expanded at 3.5 percent a year over the last five years, this has benefited only the narrow layers around the ruling House of Saud. The global recession means that this growth rate is set to halve in 2013.

Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s highest levels of youth unemployment. The official unemployment rate of young males was 24 percent in 2008, while nearly half of the country’s young women were without work. Saudi women are unable to work in many sectors of the economy because they are forbidden to work with men.

According to Saudi Labour Minister Adel Faqih, there are 2 million job seekers and 85 percent of them are female, including 373,000 university graduates. Faqih said that there were 8 million foreign workers, 6 million of them in low-paying jobs. Nearly 70 percent of foreign workers were paid less than 1,000 riyals ($270), and 18 percent less than 2,000 riyals ($540).

The oil-rich country needs 400,000 new jobs every year just to keep up with the number of young people, of whom 100,000 are graduates, entering the labour market.

Following the mass social movements in Tunisia and Egypt, and just days after protests broke out in neighbouring Bahrain in March 2011, protests began in the Eastern Province, where 90 percent of Saudi’s proven oil reserves are located and most of the Shi’ite population live. Saudi Shi’ites, who constitute 10 to 15 percent of the population, face discrimination, arbitrary arrest and detention, closure of their mosques and poverty.

Their rallies were brutally suppressed. Nevertheless, protests have continued sporadically.

At the same time, King Abdullah sought to buy off dissent with an unprecedented package of cash handouts and social programmes totalling $130 billion, more than every annual government budget before 2007, including the decision to employ 60,000 additional Saudis in the Ministry of Interior alone. However, such largesse, which depends upon high oil prices—not guaranteed under conditions of world recession—has failed to stem the demands for economic change and basic democratic and political rights.

The Internet has become the main platform of political expression in a country where the House of Saud operates a system of brutal repression, including public executions, torture and detention without trial, and outlaws all political parties, public protests, strikes and expressions of dissent.

As dissent in the form of an unprecedented barrage of criticism and ridicule on social media sites has mounted, the ruling clique has sought to clamp down on social media sites and bloggers. The liberal writer Turki al-Hamed has been imprisoned for his Tweets, and youth have been thrown into prison without charges over their Facebook posts.

Last month, two leading Saudi human rights activists, 62-year-old Abdullah al-Hamed and economics professor Mohammed Fahad al-Qahtani, were sentenced to long prison terms for various offences, including sedition, spreading false information to foreign media, and “Internet crimes”, because they had used Twitter and other sites to attack the government. The judge ruled that the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, known as Acpra, of which the two activists were founding members, was to be disbanded and its funds confiscated.

The government has reportedly asked telecom companies to look at ways they could monitor or block the use of free Internet phone services such as Skype, with the Ministry of the Interior describing social networking, particularly Twitter, as a tool used by fighters, including supporters of Al Qaeda, to stir social unrest.

The authorities are also using the divide and rule policy of sectarianism to quell dissent, deliberately whipping up tensions between the majority Sunni and minority Shi’ites, whom they maintain are being manipulated by Iran, just as they routinely blamed Iranian “interference” in Bahrain and Yemen for the unrest there, without producing any evidence.

Last month, 16 Saudi Shi’ites and two foreign nationals were arrested on charges of spying for Iran in what was widely seen as playing the sectarian card. Its purpose is to enable the government to castigate the Shi’ites as some kind of treacherous fifth column, and thus stop their demands for economic, social and political reform from coalescing with the wider social discontent.

Pinning the blame for social discontent on Iran plays well in Washington and London, which are keen to use any excuse to demonise Tehran as part of their broader strategy of isolating Iran, while at the same time serving to blunt criticism of their brutal suppression of all opposition.

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Turtle wildlife crime in Indonesia

This is a video about the pig-nosed turtle, from the BBC’s Life in Cold Blood documentary series.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Smuggled turtles confiscated

INDONESIA: Conservation agency officers have confiscated hundreds of endangered pig-nose turtles at an airport in the capital.

The head of Jakarta‘s conservation agency Awen Supranata said today that the 687 turtles are being held at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport.

Mr Supranata said the person who sent the turtles was not known, but he believed the turtles were destined for Europe or some Asian countries.

May 2013. The United Nations’ anti-crime body has resolved to step up the global fight against wildlife and forest crime in recognition of the urgent threat it poses and the serious nature of the criminal networks involved: here.

May 2013. Following a Scottish SPCA investigation, a Forres gamekeeper has been convicted of setting snares illegally and in a manner likely to cause animals unnecessary suffering: here.

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Most popular wildlife photos and articles, March 2013

From Focusing on Wildlife blog:

April 01 2013

Most Popular and Widely-Read Articles in March 2013

During March our global team of wildlife photographers and authors published 198 articles in promoting the cause of wildlife conservation. The purpose of this review is to highlight the past month’s most popular and widely-read articles.

First prize goes once again to Adam Riley with Komodo and its Dragons, an article published in August last year and one which continues to stimulate great interest. Second prize goes to Alain Pascua for The Banquet and third prize to Ron McCombe for Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos Skelleftea Sweden.

Komodo and its Dragons by Adam Riley

The Banquet by Alain Pascua

Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) by Ron McCombe

Several of the more popular articles were written by guest authors from other blogs. The most widely-read article in this category was Animal torture, abuse called a ‘regular practice’ within federal wildlife agency written by Cristina Corbin.

Most Popular and Widely-Read Articles in Mar 2013

1. Animal torture, abuse called a ‘regular practice’ within federal wildlife agency » Focusing on Wildlife [372 Views]
2. Rare, strange mammal caught on camera in Sumatra » [307 Views]
3. Komodo and its Dragons » [211 Views]
4. Frogs radio-tracked for first time in Madagascar » [193 Views]
5. Best Photo of the Week Competition 30 Mar 2013 » Focusing on Wildlife [185 Views]
6. The Banquet » Focusing on Wildlife [179 Views]
7. Photographers threatening the already-maligned slender loris » Focusing on Wildlife [167 Views]
8. New Study Finds Pesticides Leading Cause of Grassland Bird Declines » [161 Views]
9. 62% of all Africa’s forest elephants killed in 10 years (warning: graphic images) » [160 Views]
10. Birds on California Island Rebounding from Rat Devastation Following Eradication Effort » Focusing on Wildlife [158 Views]
11. Snowy owl spotted in Cairngorms » [156 Views]
12. Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos Skelleftea Sweden » [137 Views]
13. In East Africa: Empty Skies by Steve Zack » Focusing on Wildlife [128 Views]
14. Ecuador Trip Report 2013 » [127 Views]
15. What Pollution Looks Like » [126 Views]
16. Birds, Bees, and Aquatic Life Threatened by Gross Underestimate of Toxicity of World’s Most Widely Used Pesticide » Focusing on Wildlife [123 Views]
17. Costa Rica Photo Journal by Don Getty – Part 1 of 3 » [122 Views]
18. Asiatic cheetahs: on the road to extinction? » [120 Views]
19. Elephant massacre in the Congo » [117 Views]
20. A lifetime with elephants: an interview with Iain Douglas-Hamilton » [109 Views]

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Endangered Sumatran rhino rediscovery in Indonesian Borneo

This video says about itself:

A rhino love story by David Attenborough

Jan 31, 2013

This piece is from the Natural World Special film: Attenborough’s Ark, where David Attenborough considers 10 unusual species he would like to save from extinction.

Number two on the list is the smallest of the rhino family, the Sumatran Rhino – critically endangered with numbers in the wild estimated around 200. We filmed the efforts of a Sumatran conservation rebreeding programme, who in June 2012 successfully bred the first ever captive born Sumatran Rhino in Sumatra. This is their story.

From Wildlife Extra:

Critically Endangered Sumatran Rhino rediscovered in Indonesian Borneo

WWF team find footprints of rhinos on Borneo

March 2013. A WWF team on the island of Borneo to monitor [the] Orang-utan population have discovered what they believe to be the footprints of a critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, where it was believed that the rhino had been extinct for some time.

The WWF staff were monitoring a population of orang-utans in West Kutai district of East Kalimantan. Having discovered the footprints, they conducted a further survey of the area along with government forestry officials and scientists from a local university. The survey discovered further footprints, and some horn scratches at mud holes, as well as trees used as rubbing posts and bite marks on plants, raising the possibility that there may be more than one lone animal, though numbers remain unclear.

The Sumatran rhino was believed to have been extinct in Indonesian Borneo since the 1990s; and fewer than 200 animals exist anywhere in the world in the wild, still living in the wild in Indonesia and Malaysia.

According to the WWF: Current population & distribution

The Borneo Sumatran rhino is now possibly extinct in Sarawak (Malaysia) and Kalimantan (Indonesia), with perhaps fewer than 25 surviving in Sabah (Malaysia). A 2005 survey in the interior of Sabah found evidence of at least 13 rhinos, and scattered individuals are found in other parts of the state.

Read more about the Sumatran rhino on the WWF website.

Indonesian and Malaysian governments agree to work together to save Sumatran rhino: here.

Talking about Indonesian Borneo: March 2013. Pulp timber suppliers to controversial paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) are continuing to log tropical forest and dig drainage canals through peat soils in Kalimantan, regardless of the new Forest Conservation Policy (FCP) launched with much fanfare by APP and parent group Sinar Mas last month: here.

Related articles

• WWF Discovers Rare Sumatran Rhino Footprint In Borneo (latinospost.com)
• Pretty Pictures and Rummaging Rhinos (bloggerheadseaturtle.wordpress.com)
• Sumatran rhino footprints believed found on Borneo (pinoychizmiz.wordpress.com)
• Footprints Belonging to Endangered Sumatran Rhino Found in Indonesia (scienceworldreport.com)

Rare Sumatran mammal, video

Focusing on Wildlife writes about this video:

Rare, strange mammal caught on camera in Sumatra

March 11, 2013

A video camera trap expedition into Sumatra’s Leuser ecosystem has captured a rarely-seen, bizarre mammal on tape. The Sumatran serow (Capricornis sumatraensis) is a goat-antelope found both on Sumatra and mainland Southeast Asia. Rarely seen and little-studied, the animals inhabit highland areas.

Sumatran serow at Dusit Zoo, Bangkok, Thailand.

“Serows seem to be rare creatures, we only filmed two individuals. But they might still be common in Leuser’s high and remote corners,” Marten Slothouwer, who is running the Eyes on Leuser expedition, told mongabay.com, noting that there is little information on the species.

The Sumatran serow is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List; it is threatened by deforestation and hunting. The species is one of six serows found across East Asia. “In Sumatra they have been photographed in several areas and people in Leuser do like their meat, but it’s not something widely that’s available,” Slothouwer says.

Eyes on Leuser has managed to capture over 40 species on video, many of them rarely seen or recorded, in some of the last forests of Sumatra.

Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0305-hance-sumatran-serow-video.html.

Related articles

• Leuser Ecosystem Under Serious Threat (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)
• URGENT CALL FOR ACTION – 4 day “fax-a-thon” to save beyond 1.2 million hectares of forest in Aceh Province, Sumatra (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)
• Son of Aceh Received Prestigious Nature Conservation Award from The Netherlands (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)
• Pictures: Saving Sumatra’s Orangutans (news.nationalgeographic.com)
• The Daily Beast – February 28, 2013 (thestar.blogs.com)
• Rare Sumatran tiger cub born at San Francisco zoo (reuters.com)
• Tapirs, Monkeys, Baby Orangutans And More Animal Photos (huffingtonpost.com)
• New concessions for tigers? (greatcatsoftheworld.wordpress.com)
• Endangered Sumatran rhino dies (skynews.com.au)
• Sumatran tiger cub born at San Francisco Zoo (guardian.co.uk)