Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) is a large Colobine locally known as “Bekantan” which is endemic to the island of Borneo. The proboscis is facing extinction and has been listed as an endangered species by the IUCN in 2010. The major threats to the proboscis’ survival is habitat destruction caused by logging, forest fires, mining, swamp reclamation, and plantation agriculture. The population of proboscis monkeys in all conservation areas in 1990 was estimated at around 5,000; the population has fallen by as much as 50% in 2018. In Pulau Kaget Nature Reserve, the proboscis faced local extinction due to the conversion of their “protected” habitat into agricultural land. This paper is focused on the progress of a proboscis monkey sanctuary at the Bekantan Research Station located on Curiak Island (Barito River, Kalimantan). It was established in 2015 by the Universitas Lambung Manjurat (ULM, Banjarmasin), and inaugurated in 2017 to conduct bekantan research and wetland ecosystems by the ULM Chancellor and faculty from the University of Newcastle (UON, Australia). For the first time, it was marked by a summer course of intensive activities with students from ULM and UON. Additionally, a bekantan conservation project (a collaboration of a coal mining company with local NGOs) was established to create an ecotourism development project at Bakut island. The eighteen hectare natural park, where sixty individuals remain, has shown a slow return of the proboscis monkey population to their original habitat, as well as numerous bird species.