Welcome to Borneo Discovery Tours Indonesia

(http://www.borneo-discoverytours.com/)

A COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINING THE RAINFOREST, SAVE THE WATER AND ENVIRONMENTS

Borneo Discovery Tours, experienced handling clients from all over the world more than 20 years to organized to visiting the endagered species of wild orangutans, at Kutai National Park, Samboja Lestari Orangutan, Treeking Sungai Wain Balikpapan, Bukit Bengkirai Canopy Walk, Mahakam river tours, observation, Cultural & Educational tours, Banjarmasin Floating market tours, Bamboo Rafting tours, Tanjung Puting National Park, Overland tours east to south Borneo, cross Borneo expeditions tours, Treeking, Sightseeing, City tours, Study Tours, Eco-adventure trip in Borneo Indonesia. Our enviromentally-friendly tour packages are designed for people who like to experiences adventure activities, wildlife's, exploring the local cultures, and learn about nature and environment. We handling free individual travelers and group incentive travelers.

Borneo Discovery Tours, follow the responsible travel guidelines which are designed to prevent business couse as little damage as possible to the area, in which we operating, and exploring. Minimazing negative effects on environment and social, but also have positive impact to community. More than that, we actively seek to provide benefits to the environment and local peoples. This means that as more common practices like, for example, reducing and recycling waste, plant the tree's and Save the Water and the Sustaning the Rainforest through the campaigns to everybody who was involve in tourism industries. We recruits staff locally in order to ensure that the local economy also gains from tourist revenue. We were supported by professional staff that experienced in tourism industries that made us able to provide excellent services to our clients.

Our Values
Quality: We are committed to continuously and proactively improving the quality of our services by constantly enhancing existing tours and developing new tours.
Value: We offer tours with the best combination of price and quality.
Enjoyment: We strive to create a fun, informative and enthusiastic tour environment our tour members look forward to participating in each day.
Culture: Our tours are tailored to break down as many barriers to the lifestyle, customs and traditions as possible to allow the maximum exposure and experience.
Honesty and Integrity: All business is conducted in a forthright and trustworthy manner, and all business practices will be consistent with our Mission and values.



About Borneo Indonesia !
Borneo Indonesia consist of the four province, east, south, central and west kalimantan.

*East Kalimantan (Balikpapan, Samarinda) 
*South Kalimantan (Banjarmasin)
*Central Kalimantan (Palangkaraya, Pangkalanbun)
*West kalimantan (Pontianak)

Let's go together to protect the "Biodiversity" in Borneo Island
Borneo is very rich in biodiversity compared to many other areas. There are about 15.000 species of flowering plants with 3.000 species of trees (267 species are dipterocarps), 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds in borneo. It is also centre of evolution and radiation of many endemic species of plants and animals. The remaining Borneo rainforest is the only natural habitats for the endangered Bornean Orangutan. It it also an important refuge for many endemic forest species. The Worl Wildlife Fund divides the island into seven distinct ecoregions. The Borneo lowland rainforests cover most of the island, with an area 427,500 Km2.
and researchers scouring swamps in the heart of Borneo island have discovered a venomous species of snake that can change its skin color. Scienties named their find the Kapuas mud snake, and speculated it might only occur in the Kapuas river drainage system. World Wildlife Fund has stated that 361 animal and plant species have been discovered in Borneo since 1996, underscoring its unparalleled biodiversity. In the 18 month periode from July 2005 until December 2006, another 52 new species were found. 

PROMOSION : Sebangau National Park Wild Orangutan Walks

A totally original orangutan ecotour is being developed in Central Kalimantan, the heart of Indonesian Borneo. A partnership of orangutan researchers, WWF-Indonesia and Kalimantan Tour Destinationst, will cooperate to create a unique experience of wild orangutans which will help to preserve endangered habitat, to ensure benefits flow directly to local communities and government authorities, and to provide an unforgettable journey by boat into the heart of Borneo’s forests.

Project description
Background The project area is within an extensive tropical peat-swamp forest in southern Central Kalimantan, rich in biodiversity and especially noted for supporting the largest world population of the endangered orangutan. The area is of high conservation importance as a major global store of carbon and WWF-Indonesia has been working in the region since 2001 to establish it as a National Park. The change in land status may not be sufficient to protect it from continued forest degradation. Illegal logging and encroachment remain problems and the roots of these are invariably economic. Mechanisms that provide income to the local communities of the Sebangau Ecosystem, linked to protection of the natural resource, are urgently required. This ecotour project is proposed to alleviate those effects.

Comparable projects All previous and current orangutan tourism ventures are centred around rehabilitation and release centres, notably at Sepilok in Sabah, Malaysia, Bukit Lawang in North Sumatra and Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan. These centres provide a home for orphaned orangutans confiscated from human captors and have released many individuals back into the forest where they receive provisioning of fruit. These release centres have provided the opportunity for tourists to see orangutans in their natural habitat, albeit performing many un-natural activities and sometimes interacting very closely with observers.

Unique tourism product Simply leading tourists into the forest, on the other hand, will yield few sightings. Our project proposes to use experienced orangutan researchers to accompany tourists on an orangutan watching walk. Such a program is unique in the world. The area selected for tourist visits has been identified by consultation and site research. The habituation of orangutans at least 6 months prior to the arrival of tourists, will serve to virtually guarantee an orangutan sighting and reduce the stress caused to observed animals. The effort of trekking through dense jungle will be truly rewarded by the sighting and following of a wild orangutan in its native habitat.

Tour itinerary proposed Specifically, tourists will travel from hotel accommodation in or near Palangkaraya to the major regional capital of Kasongan, 80 km by road. From Kasongan, tourists will board the very comfortable and fully catered for hotel boat, spending 4 glorious days on the boat, slowly cruising to the Lombok Tropic Holidays ecotourism site down river. Stops will also be made at riverside villages to see local specialist activities, such as rattan collection, drying and weaving, or fish farming activities. Other activities include taking a detour to walk to one of the only rocky outcrops in the 600 ha park, or shimmering on glassy, black water lakes. The tour will end at the mouth of the Katingan River, where Proboscis Monkeys can be seen from the boat racing through the mangroves.

Researchers will give information about the environment and orangutan, and will brief visitors on the walk and any regulations in force. No more than two tourists at a time will go with a dedicated guide/researcher provided by the research team. They will locate an orangutan in the field, then, with the tourists, will ‘track’ it for period of one hour or longer, watching it travel, eat and, if fortunate, socially interact with other individuals, all the time learning about the species and its environment.

Expertise The benefits of working with orangutan researchers who have long been studying wild orangutans in the area, are that they are extremely knowledgeable about the species and about the individual orangutans being followed. Ultimately, with published research from the area, its prestige will be raised. Also, this data will allow the impact of tourism on orangutan behaviour to be studied. This kind of continuing research could assist with development of further high standard ecotour operations. It could also open the door to potential alternative types of tourism and revenue streams, further benefiting the local community. It also gives this tour a high degree of credibility at the international level.

WWF-Indonesia in Palangkaraya is funded to provide technical assistance through training, workshop and skill development program to have community well organized in providing for and attracting more tourist/visitors, aimed a long term sustainable livelihood and benefits from tourism activity rather than seeking short term gain. It can expand community involvement in tourism development, for example, by promoting home stay accommodation, using local transportation, local guides and handicrafts. With its existing government and local contacts, and proven successes in negotiations for the national park status, WWF-Indonesia can promote development program ecotourism based on conservation through collaborative management with local government, local community and related stakeholders.

Expected results of the project
Income to support local communities and nature conservation The Sebangau Ecosystem is an extensive area of tropical peat-swamp forest and marshland in southern Indonesian Borneo and of high conservation importance as a major global store of carbon. It also provides many natural resource functions for the surrounding human communities. The Sebangau was gazetted as a National Park at the end of 2004 but this change in land status is unlikely to be sufficient to protect it from continued forest degradation. Illegal logging and encroachment remain problems and the roots of these are invariably economic. This ecotourism project is a mechanism for income generation for the local communities linked to protection of the natural resource.

Contribution to nature conservation The aim is to establish a tourism program that offers a specialised, guaranteed opportunity to view wild orangutans in a Borneo rainforest. This would be a unique experience, as no other tourism venture underway has the main aim of observing wild orangutans. The sole reasons for establishing such a project are to support the conservation of the Sebangau Ecosystem, through the following mechanisms:

o To generate funds to be used for: the development of essential infrastructures for the local communities; to support the development of non-exploitative livelihoods which will provide income to individuals in local communities; to support the protection of the proposed Sebangau National Park; to provide employment to members of the local communities and overall, to ensure the viability of the Sebangau Ecosystem as a National Park.

To raise awareness of the importance of the orangutan and the forest and its natural resource functions within the local communities and positively change local attitudes about the forest and the orangutan.

To raise the status of the Sebangau Ecosystem as an important area for biodiversity conservation, particularly the orangutan, locally, nationally and internationally.

Cost setting and income ma5nagement The precise amount to be paid, the organisation responsible for handling this money and the decisions on how it should be best spent must be agreed by all, including involved NGO’s, local, regional (and possibly also) national government, community leaders and the involved tour operator. The following ideas will be examined as good practice in this regard.

Permanent management body An Orangutan Watching Fee will be paid by each and every tourist visiting the site. This money should be solely used for community projects, including assisting livelihoods and developing infrastructure. The amount of this fee will be no less than US$100 per person, and may be raised upon agreement by the local stakeholders. The income and expenditure of this money should be transparent and clearly presented to all the relevant communities. The money should be used to benefit each identified, relevant community equally. Administration costs should be sourced from a different fee. This fixed fee system mirrors that used in Uganda for mountain gorilla viewing. In that case, a fixed number of permits are sold each day for a fixed price, although the money is paid to and spent by the central government.

Fixed fee for conservation activities A second fund should ideally be established that takes a fixed fee from each tourist to be used for conservation activities, education and administration. The nature of the permanent management body responsible for disembursing this money is yet to be decided upon.

Taxes and administration costs Separately, taxes and national park entry-fees will be obligatory payments to the local/national government. It is recommended that agreement is reached for park entry-fees to be returned to support the protection of the area.

Benefits to local inhabitants Through the mechanism of the permanent management body, fees levied on tourists will go to support local livelihoods as alternatives to illegal logging and other non sustainable livelihoods. Funds will also go to infrastructure (hospitals, schools etc.) and for community projects. Empowerment of the local communities in this way has been proven to develop their sense of ownership of and care for the environment.

Sustainable livelihoods WWF-Indonesia already works closely among the local community within and bordering the Sebangau ecosystem to promote sustainable, responsible and innovative livelihoods. The rattan industry thrives here, and with rattan vines needing forest trees to support them, acts to protect the environment. A number of processing factories are sited along the banks of the Katingan. WWF-Indonesia and local government are engaged in encouraging local people to develop a weaving home industry. Other industries, based on the forest, include chewing gum resin from Dyera lowii, medicinal plant collection, fishing and shrimping, appropriate agriculture and livestock keeping. These current programs will be expanded.

Outcome The project team aims to produce a blueprint for eco tour development within Central Kalimantan by close monitoring of the progress of this project. Eventually, this can be shared with other community groups from this region and beyond, giving a wider impact to the principles of nature conservation, local community development and sustainable livelihoods. 

FROM :  

http://www.orangutanislands.com/tanjung-puting-national-park.htm

PROMOSION : TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK CENTRAL KALIMANTAN - INDONESIA

 

Here are so many words that can describe Borneo, including verdant, vast, and vibrant. It is the world's third largest island with an extremely diverse flora and fauna that include more than 380 species of birds, 222 species of mammals, more than 2,000 species of orchids, and more than 3,000 species of trees. Borneo is one of 17,000 islands that comprise the country of Indonesia, and it's one of two places on the planet where orangutans live.

 

Tanjung Puting National Park has several ecosystem types: lowland tropical rain forest, dryland forest, freshwater swamp forest, mangrove forest, coastal forest, and secondary forest.

The Park is dominated by lowland forest plants like jelutung (Dyera costulata), ramin (Gonystylus bancanus), meranti (Shorea sp.), keruing (Dipterocarpus sp.), and rattans.

Endangered and protected species of animal inhabiting the Park include the orangutan (Pongo satyrus), proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), maroon leaf monkey (Presbytis rubicunda rubida), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus euryspilus), lesser Malay mouse deer (Tragulus javanicus klossii), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), and leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis borneoensis).

Tanjung Puting is the largest and most diverse protected example of extensive coastal tropical heath and peat swamp forest which used to cover much of southern Borneo . The area was originally declared as a game reserve in 1935 and a National Park in 1982. While the Park has checkered history of weak protection, nonetheless, it remains substantially wild and natural.

Tanjung Puting is covered by a complex mosaic of diverse lowland habitats. It contains 3,040 sq km2 of low lying swampy terrain punctuated by blackwater rivers which flow into the Java Sea . At the mouth of these rivers and along the sea coast are found Nipa/mangrove swamps. Mangroves teem with animal life. Tanjung Puting also includes tall dry ground tropical rain forest, primarily tropical heath forest, with a canopy of 40 meters (120 feet) with "emergents" exceeding 50
meters (150 ft) in height, seasonally inundated peat swamp forest with peat in layers two meters deep, open depression lakes formed by fire, and open areas of abandoned dry rice fields now covered with elephant grass and ferns. The tropical heath forest which is called "kerangas" in parts of Borneo , is only found on very poor, typically white-sandy soils and is characterized by medium-sized trees.

The best known animals in Tanjung Puting are the orangutans, made famous through the efforts of Orangutan Research and Conservation Program, which is based at the landmark Camp Leakey research station. Tanjung Puting also boasts the bizarre looking proboscis monkey with its "Jimmy Durante" nose as well as seven other primate species. Clouded leopards, civets, and Malaysian sun bears cavort in the park as do mouse deer, barking deer, sambar deer, and the wild cattle known as banteng.

Tanjung Puting hosts over 220 species of birds, including hornbills, deep forest birds and many wetland species. Tanjung Puting is well known for its "bird lakes, " seasonal rookeries for a half a dozen species of endangered waterbirds, including the only known Bornean nesting grounds for white egrets. Tanjung Puting also has two species of crocodiles, dozens of snakes and frogs, numerous threatened species, including the fortune-bringing and highly endangered "dragon" fish also known as the Arwana (bony-tongue). Among the most flamboyant of these animals are the many species of colorful birds,butterflies, and moths found in the Park.

Tanjung Puting sits on a peninsula that juts out into the Java Sea . The peninsula is low lying and swampy with a spine of dry ground which rises a few feet above the omnipresent swamp. Towards the north of Tanjung Puting is characterized by gentle hills and gold- bearing alluvial plains. Maps of the region commonly portray a ridge of mountains coming down into Tanjung Puting. This ridge does not exist, in fact, nowhere does the altitude rise above 100 feet in Tanjung Puting.

Tanjung Puting is a veritable hothouse of ecodiversity. The diverse habitat zones shelter slightly different fauna and flora providing a great variety of microhabitats for plants and animals and thus, the opportunity for many species to be present in close proximity. In a Bornean context, tropical heath forest by itself is not representative of the largest trees, the tallest canopy, or the most diverse ecosystem.Tropical swamp ecosystems are little represented in protected areas throughout Southeast Asia but are omnipresent in Tanjung Puting. In the peat swamp forest, many trees have stilt roots or aerial roots as adaptations to frequent flooding.

Aside from its remarkable biological attributes, Tanjung Puting is highly important for the well-being of the surrounding local human population. The wetlands provide vital ecological services such as flood control, stream control regulation, erosion control, natural biological filtration system, and seasonal nurseries for fish which are the major source of local animal protein. Many of these services have an impact well beyond the local area.

For instance, the waters surrounding Tanjung Puting attract fishing vessels from many different parts of Indonesia . In addition, local peoplebenefit from a great variety of forest products including honey, waxes, aromatic woods, fibers for ropes and cloth, medicinal plants, fuel oils, thatching materials, rattan, firewood, incense, wild rubber, edible latexes, resins, natural pesticides, fungicides and possible virocides.

For the above reasons and many other reasons not noted, Tanjung Puting is recognized as one of the most important and outstanding provincial treasures in Kalimantan Tengah. The national government has also made a strong commitment to protect the forest, its wildlife and to manage the park wisely. Tanjung Puting has increasingly gained international prestige and recognition. As a result, more and more visitors from throughout the world are experiencing a fresh new outlook on nature and an appreciation of the tropical rain forest which was humankind's original "Garden of Eden."

This Park was the first place in Indonesia to become a rehabilitation centre for orangutans. There are now three orangutan rehabilitation locations, Tanjung Harapan, Pondok Tanggui, and Camp Leakey.

The orangutan of Kalimantan has dark reddish fur and no tail. As they get older, the adult males cheeks flesh out, resembling cushions. The older they get, the bigger these cheek flanges grow, giving them a fierce look.

UNESCO has declared Tanjung Puting National Park as a Biosphere Reserve, and it is also a Sister Park to Taman Negara Malaysia under a cooperation agreement between Indonesia and Malaysia.

Interesting locations/attractions:

Tanjung Harapan: this is the first station in the orangutan rehabilitation process. Situated in the midst of secondary forest and swamp forest, it has a guesthouse, an information centre, and trails.

Pondok Tanggui: orangutans that have passed the semi-wild phase are moved to Pondok Tanggui. There, they are closely monitored from a distance, and human contact is avoided.

Camp Leakey: founded in 1971 in the middle of primary forest, this is the location for semi-wild and wild orangutans, and for younger orangutans from birth until three years of age.

Natai Lengkuas: bekantan research station, and watching other animals along the river.

Buluh River and Danau Burung ( Bird Lake ): watching birds, in particular migrant species.

Among the cultural attractions outside the Park is a traditional rowing contest held in Pangkalan Bun in May.

Best time of year to visit: April to November

How to reach the Park: Jakarta-Semarang-Pangkalan Bun by plane, or from Semarang to Pangkalan Bun by ship. Pangkalan Bun-Kumai by car (8 km). Then, Kumai-Tanjung Harapan by motorized longboat, 1.5-2 hours; or Kumai-Natai Lengkuas, 4-5 hours; Kumai-Tanjung Harapan by fast motor boat, 0.5-1 hour; Kumai-Camp Leakey, 1.5-2 hours; or from Kumai-Natai Lengkuas, 1.5-2 hours.

FROM :  

http://www.orangutanislands.com/tanjung-puting-national-park.htm