genuine ethnic borneo

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

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Mangroves
Mangroves are found in estuaries and coastal regions. WWF estimates that mangroves cover some 1.2 million hectares in Borneo, a small fraction — perhaps less than 20 percent — of their original extent. In Kalimantan large areas of mangroves were cleared by loggers and for agriculture.

Peat Swamp Forests
Peat swamp forests are the dominant form of remaining lowland forest in Borneo today. These swamp forests appear in places where dead vegetation becomes waterlogged and, too wet to decompose, accumulates as peat. These tropical peat lands, formed over hundreds of years, are giant stores of carbon. Draining and/or burning these lands, releases tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These drained areas also become highly susceptible to combustion. Under the dry el NiƱo conditions of 1997-98, thousands of fires raged in the peat swamps of Indonesia. Fires in peat swamps are extraordinarily difficult to extinguish because they can burn for months virtually undetected in the deeper layers of peat. In 2002 peat forests covered about ten million hectares in Borneo according to Langner and Siegert (2005)

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