Indonesian Conservation Media Center

When the River is Getting Murkier

Lesan forest is degrading: muddy water in the river – fishes, storm cranes, and honey bees have started to disappear. It’s getting difficult for the villagers to live. The government’s plan to build a hydroelectric power meets an obstacle.

From aboard the katinting, Lesan River looks muddy brown. The water flow is slow, as if it’s full of mud. “Even though there is no flood, the water is still murky,” said Bibin Subiana, a villager from Muara Lesan village who cross the river everyday on his way to work at Merapun village. “It’s getting difficult to find fishes,” said Abet Nego, the son of the deputy chief of Lesan Dayak, “Even if we use fishnets, it’s still hard to get any.”

Abet lives around the river since childhood, and he has a story. Once, the river was crystal clear, like a glass. You could see every fish living in the river from aboard the katinting. You could even catch them with bare hands. Food was abundant. The glass river was a protein source to the people living in the villages. Aside from farming, fishery was the main income for the people of Dayak Punan, who have lived in the area since decades ago. But now, the muddy water keeps any living organisms away from the river.

Along with the fishes, storm cranes (Ciconia stormi) are also disappearing. The cranes are one of the endangered species in the world that live in Lesan together with the orangutans. According the regent of Berau, Drs H Makmur HAPK MM, quoting a research, from 1,000 population of storm cranes, 300 of them live here. However, last June, a US ornithologist who visited Lesan didn’t found even a single being of this rare bird. “Perhaps because of this murky water, the birds can’t find any fish to eat,” said Abet, who frequently work as a guide to foreign researchers.

When cranes can’t find anything to eat, they easily move to another area, and look for food somewhere else. On the contrary, the people living around Lesan can’t do what the cranes do. They have no choice than to stay where they had been living since their ancestors, even if food is getting difficult to find. The least they can do is to adapt to the change, like substituting fishes with other protein source they can get in the market. For the people of Muara Lesan, Lesan Dayak, Merapun, and Sidobangun nowadays, their daily menu is not fish anymore, but chicken – not different from the city people.

Beside fishes and cranes, honey bees are disappearing. In the past, Abet said, Lesan forest honey, famous for its hygiene, was plentiful. It’s easy to find, easy to get, everywhere. But now, its abundance is just a history. Even if it is found, it only exists in some point around Muara Lesan village.

Undeniably, the murky mud of the river water, and the loss of fishes, cranes, and honey bees, seem to be the symptoms of Lesan forest degradation. How far has it been degrading? Are these early symptoms or have they been going on for years? We don’t know exactly. One thing for sure, nature is always in equilibrium. Every living creature in Lesan forest, or in any other forests, depends on each other, like cranes depend on fishes, and fishes depend on microorganisms and oxygen in the river. The number of fishes decreases because they are not able to compete with other living things the mud brings. And once the cranes disappear, there will be other creatures harmed.

The same thing also applied to the honey bees. They probably disappear because of pollution or overhunting. The loss of honeybees will decrease the chance of flowers to pollinate, which cause the decrease of fruit in the forest, and it makes the orangutans and other frugivorous creatures have to do extra efforts to get food. Further impacts will be seed dispersals and seedlings’ growth declining, the disturbance of forest’s regeneration, and so on until the forest find its new equilibrium.

If the loss of fishes and honeybees is easy to recognize, then the loss of other wildlife is not that easy to tell because of the indirect impact on people. We need an in-depth and thorough research to measure the loss of biodiversity. According to the recent survey, there are 52 species of mammals, 118 species of birds, 18 species of bats, 12 species of amphibians, and a few species of reptiles (including iguana) that live in Lesan forest. Among them are the orangutans Pongo pygmaeus mario (who live in eastern Kalimantan), storm cranes, gibbons (Hylobates moulleri), crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis), and proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus).

The primate diversity is rich because of food abundance in Lesan forest. According to the survey records, there are at least 45 species of fruit trees and herbal medicines. According to Abet, his ancestors often used these herbal medicines for traditional medication.

Because of the loss fishes, honey bees and the disappearance of storm cranes caused by the murky river, biodiversity in Lesan forest has been decreased, and the people who live there will be in disadvantage in the end.

One of the disadvantage is the obstruction of hydroelectric power establishment. Following the establishment of microhydroelectric power in Teluk Sumbang, Berau district government is planning to establish another six microhydroelectric power, including in sub-district Kelay in which the people are still using diesel generator for public lighting. The success of this project depends on the number of water debit in Kelay river and Lesan river. If both of the river cannot supply a stable amount of water, the “electricity into Kelay” project will be cancelled. (To be continued)

This article has been published in Tribun Kaltim newspaper on Friday, November 21st, 2008, supported by fellowship program of orangutan news coverage. This fellowship program is a collaboration project between Orangutan Conservation Service Program (OCSP), Yayasan Pro Media, and Analisis Jurnalis Independen (AJI) Jakarta.