Nusa Penida, BALI
1st kvartalsrapport - År 2010
January - februar til mars
Wildlife Protection, Habitat Restaurering & Community Wellbeing
Jeg. Innledning
I 2010, Venner av National Parks Foundation har truffet bakken kjører fortsetter med vår pågående og konsekvent innsats av de siste årene i viltstell. På Bali Bird Sanctuary på Nusa Penida disse aktivitetene fokusert på fugl rehabilitering og oppfølging av tidligere utgitte fugler, inkludert Bali Starling (Leucopsar rothschildi), Mitchells Lorikeet (Tricoglosus haematodus mitchellii), Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo ( Cacatua sulphurea parvula) og Røde Lories (Psittacula Alex). Observasjon Resultatene viste det var svingninger i befolkningen spesielt Bali Starling.
Apart from activities directly related to animals, other supporting activities such as land rehabilitation, bevaring utdanning og samfunnsutvikling fortsatte med det formål å opprettholde den sterke samarbeid og støtte gitt av den lokale befolkningen for FNPF aktiviteter.
II. Report on Bird Release
II.1 Observation on the Bali Starling ( Leucopsar rothschildi).
The Bali Starling observation was largely in cooperation between FNPF and Begawan Foundation. Vår informasjon og observasjoner om denne svært truede arter er avhengig av innsatsen til våre ansatte observasjon, men er også basert på informasjon gitt av lokale folk.
During the months since the start of the year we are pleased to note there were some reproduction activities. From 6 utprøvde parene som ble overvåket, er 8 ekstra babyen Bali stær, 5 of them are second generation offspring hatched in the wild which is a great achievement and signal of the success of the breeding program. The numbers are based on the birds that have been observed flying with their parents. En av de to er grunn til å ha sin andre clutch i denne perioden, men vi donoren vet ennå hvor mange avkom de har hatt. The total population that we have observed on Penida Island vary from 77 - 82. We have also received information from visitors and the local community that there were some birds spotted beyond our regular observation areas where the bird were originally releaased ( Ped, Batumadeg, Puncak Mundi og gjenfinning). Sightings were also recorded on Lembongan Island and Sompang area which is quite far from the release site. This is significant due to the small range of the Bali Starling pairs on Nusa Penida who normally nest and feed within a range of 300metres When in a group Bali Starling can range as far as 2 km, as has been recorded in West Bali National Park, but they dont usually travel this distance everyday. These new sightings may suggest a larger range for the birds on Nusa Penida – and we will continue our observations in the area.
II.2 Observasjon på Mitchells Lorikeet (Tricoglosus haematodus mitchellii )
Den Mitchells Lorikeet er mer og mer seldomly observert rundt på kontoret området. The most frequent appearances were in early 2010 with only one bird found regularly around FNPF’s office. This bird has seldom been seen again around the office. We are reahabilitating 3 fugler for fremtiden slipper å legge tallene av ville fugler. They are due for release as soon as the dry season comes in – normally in May but possibly later as we have had late rains this year.
II.3 Observation of the Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatúa sulphurea parvula)
During this period we obseved that one of the Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoos that were released by the Governor of Bali on November 2009 at Puncak temu Temple, has been observed closer and closer to one female at Sedihing village. We hope something good will come of this potential pair.
The female that we took back to the office for rehabilitation is already able to fly much better than before and is now demonstrating its ability to get food from the wild such as Jamaican Cherry (Muntingea carabula) frukt, Morringga ulcifera frø, Red Bead treet (Adenanthera microsperma ) frø og chili. Denne spesielle kvinnelige spiser også unge blader og knopper.
We are in progress to set up a breeding and release program in Nusa Penida for the Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. We are happy to annoice that we have received some support from one of the participants at 2010 International Parrot Festival in Houston Texas USA, who is willing to find some birds in captivity which could be released in Nusa Penida. We have followed up this support by applying for all the paper work that we need to bring in the bird to Nusa Penida, including contacting the Forestry Department, Livestock Department and we have also applied to present the program to the Governor of Bali. We were scheduled to present the whole Bali Bird Sanctuary program by April 6th 2010.
II.4 Observations of Java Sparrow(Frog oryzivora).
Up until the end of March 2010, our staff have not reported any sightings of the Java Sparrow that were released on National Planting Day, (November 29th) 2009. Birds were observed more than a week afrter the inital release date. Vi antar at antall fugler som vi ble løslatt, var ikke stor nok til å bli sett, eller for å beskytte seg mot rovdyr. To overcome this issue of numbers we are setting up a breeding program for this bird for future releases.
II.5 Observation on Red Lory (Eos Borneo)
Both of the Red Lory continue to frequently appear around Ped village
II.6 Moustache Parakeet (Psitacula alexandri)
Vi fant bare en av Moustache Parakeet, en uparet fugl, rundt vår kontorareal. The two other pairs were not observed during this period.
III. Supporting Activities
III.1 Conservation Education
I løpet av de første tre månedene av 2010, conservation education activities were minimal due to the schools’ focus on examinations and graduations for the 2009-2010 academic year.
III.2 Land Rehabilitation
FNPF’s planting activities were focused more on seedling propagation and maintenance of seedlings previously planted. Until late March, there were 27.470 seedlings ready to be planted, consisting of 11 species. These include: White teak (Gmelina arborea), Jamaican cherry (Muntingea calabura), Silk treet (Albizia chinensis), Monkey pod (Albizia saman), Kassof tree (Cassia siamea), Palm, Neem (Azadirachta indica), Tropical almond (Terminalia catapa), and Bead tree (Adenanthera microsperma)
Apart from these, seedlings were also acclimatized at our nursery, herunder: Neem, (Azadirachta indica), Prickly ash / Crocodile wood (Zanthoxylum rhetsa) etc with totalling 4.896 in number. From these 400 were dontated to the local community due to the onset of rain. As with previous years, most of the seedlings we are producing are items suitable for agroforestry. The most popular species with the local people are those that can be consumed as animal food, which produce a good wood and are also adapted to the dry conditions on Nusa Penida. The locals value the economic benefit of these species. For our conservation purposes, the species also must give benefits to the Nusa Penida environment to increase the carrying capacity of the island for wildlife, especially birds.
III.2.1 Planting at Tanglad
Planting activities at Tanglad in 2010 have been focused on replanting around sites where dead plants were found after the first year since planting. We replanted bamboos and a range of forest plants. There were about 500 bamboos planted consisting of Common bamboo, Giant bamboo, Yellow stemmed bamboo etc. The rest of the species that we replanted during this period were largely Kassof tree (Cassia siamea) and Monkey pod (Albizia saman). These seedlings were distributed and planted on the sites sponsored by :
- PT Karya Tangan Indah / John Hardy International: 654 seedlings (10 Ha fully funded)
- PT Pertamina: 498 seedlings (10 Ha fully funded)
- PT Warisan: 740 seedlings ( 6,5 Ha funded amongst 10 Ha we have planted).
We replanted much more of the PT Warisan site because this site was largely burnt by fire in October 2009.
På 12 hektar av den andre fasen planting nettsted som ble startet i desember 13, 2009, av 4,800 frøplanter som vi plantet, 3,987 PLANTER, eller 83%, were found alive in late March. Most of these plants are Silk trees (Albizia chinensis), Kassof trees (Cassia siamea) and Monkey Pod trees (Albizia saman). Gumna Safari Park and YK Ltd sponsored 1 Ha of the planting.
Besides the above mentioned main donors for our reforestation program, we also got some support from Maya Hotel Ubud. Some tourists visiting Nusa Penida were also interested in our work and gave donations to maintain the trees that the are planting. We hope we will able to find sponsors for 14,5 Ha of land that we have planted to help maintain the seedlinds and give us more flexibility to do further work in this area.
III.3 Community Development
Early 2010, FNPF continued the Community Development program with the objective to maintain support given by Nusa Penida people for FNPF’s programs .
III.3.1 Bamboo plaanting
I januar-mars perioden, med hensyn til bambus, activities were focused on seedling propagation and monitoring beause this program is being reviewed by our donor. Our continuous effort in propagating bamboo seedlings resulted in 26,617 seedlings in late March, consisting of Giant bamboo (Dendrocalamus asper), Buddha Belly bamboo, Common bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris), and Yellow-stemmed bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris Schrad).
Up until late March, 7,000 bamboos were distributed amongst 38 local people. These bamboos consisted of Giant bamboo, Spotted bamboo, Common bamboo, and Black bamboo. The survival rate is between 69,81 % og 100%. We encouraging the community to plant bamboo because in March we have had more rainfall than the previous month.
III.3.2 Seeds For Bali Program
This program has shown very good results and is a real example for anyone who doubts the potential for successful tree planting and agroforestrty work on dry sites such as Nusa Penida. The first planting site at Puncak Temu area with total size of approximately 7 hectares has quite wide range in results from one site due to land to the other in terms of the growth due to land quality. Some of the seedlings that were planted on very degraded land did not grow any higher than 1 m. At the other side many of the seedlings at this area grew more than 4 m especially those growing on the slope of the hills. The survival rate at this area remains at 76%.
At the second planting site, Adegan village, the results are even better than at Puncak Temu. Over most of the total 3 Hectares of land, the growth of the seedlings more than 3 m.. The survival rate at the area is 93 %.
Vi håper å ha en agroskogbruk prosjekt i disse to områdene vil oppmuntre flere bønder å plante trær. Those two sites have shown a real example that if we look after the seedling that we plant the trees have far better survival rate and growth. This program is fully funded by Pt. Bank Danamon Indonesia Open (Danamon) og American Express Card medlemmer. We hope we will have more support from our donors – or from anyone interested to support our program.
III.3.3 Children’s Traditional Dance Class
The children’s traditional dance classes continued to be held on the grounds of FNPF’s office at Ped and at Batumadeg. Klassene holdes to ganger i uken. At these two places, the number of students participating is between 40 til 50 on each class day.
III.3.4 Composting and Fermented Cow Food Course
During this period, we developed and presented an introductory course for producing compost and cow food from organic material, including waste material. Training was given by Supriyo Guntoro from the Bali Pengkajian Teknologi Pertanian (Agriculture Technology Study Unit of Bali). The training was held at FNPF’s office area at Ped on the 3rd February 2010. Omtrent 50 participants came to this course which was not only attended by farners but also by straff from the office of the Department of Cleaning and Parks – who take care of waste management on the island. The head of Nusa Penida sub district also attendance. We hope by developing this course we can provide some solutions to address the difficulty for local farmers in finding food for cows and livestock during the dry season and also to give knowledge to the farmers on how to improve their soil quality by demonstrating simple production techniques for making compost. Our long term aim for this program is to minimize the incident of accidental fires that have repeatedly resulted from slash and burn farming practices, and also to reduce number of farmers burning grasslands at the end of rainy season to try to get good quality grass for their livestock during the rainy season. The accidental fires from these acticivities have burnt 20 hectares of our 1st year planting site and also 10 hectares of the planting site on government land.
We have not continued with further courses because we started to have unseasonal rain at the end of March which has resulted in lots of green fodder being available for the cows. With fresh grass available it would be difficult for the farmers to introduce a new kind of fermented food for their cows. We will repeat this process inthe next dry season. This course is being supported by Direct Aid Program from the Australian Consulate in Bali.
IV. Other
IV.1 Half a Cow Appeal
The half a cow appeal which was aimed at raising money to buy a cow from two donors got a very good response. We got support from Sarin Bhuwana Eco Lodge (Linda and Norman Van Hoff) and David Lambert for this Project. The cow is nicknamed “Tidak Apa Apa” which means no worries in Balinese, in honour of the Australian donors who contributed to her purchase. ‘TAA’ is being cared for at FNPF office. Integrated with this program we are raising earth worms to produce compost of far higher quality than just cow dung alone. This will be used on seedlings in our Reforestation Nursery. ‘TAA’ is pregnant and we area expecting to get the first calf in 6-7 måneder. We may develop this program to assist local farmers as a part of our community development projects, hvis vi kan få flere støttespillere for denne. La oss vite om du ville være interessert!
IV.2 Skolebesøk
Mars 23 Vi vert et besøk fra 27 students and 4 teachers from Pelita Harapan School in West Java. They came to the island as a part of their studies, to learn about the conservation work that FNPF is doing, in paritcular reforestation and general conservation issues. At the same time the student also learned about the Begawan Foundation Bali Starling Breeding and Release Program, and local seaweed farming. During this trip each student planted Jamaican Cherry ( Muntingea carabula ) by the road side at FNPF office area.
IV.3 Scientific Research
A biology student from Universitas Indonesia (Indonesian University) is doing a research paper for her Masters in Biology regarding the relationships amongst bird species on Nusa Penida. We hope this research will give us more information about how all bird species in Nusa Penida interact, including the birds that have been released recently. Nusa Penida used to have a much larger bird population that has declined over a long period due to logging and land clearing from the time of Dutch occupation and poaching by outside bird traders.
I. Conclusion
Despite ongoing limited funding availability, we are managing to maintain our work with good support from the local community and local government. We hope to have additional financial support to ensure the survival of the Bali Bird Sanctuary on Nusa Penida longterm – and in order to continue to improve the quality and breadth of our work across wildlife conservation, reaforestation, agroforestry, miljøopplæring og samfunnet developement.
