scholarly journals CARBON MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN PAPUA REGION

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Hendri

Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest tropical rainforest area, especially in Papua Island together with Papua New Guinea accounted the third largest tropical rainforests in the world, after the Amazon (336.7 million ha) and Congo (181.3 million ha). The total tropical rainforest area is 68.7 million ha contained Papua about 57% (39.2 million ha) and 43% (29.5 million ha) Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, deforestation rates in the few decades increased from 1.39 million ha in the period 1985 – 1997 and 0.6 million ha in the period 2000 – 2005. The direct impact of rapid LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change & Forestry) changes since 1980`s has accumulated critical land by 29.0% of forest area in West Papua and 31.4% of forest area in Papua. Climate change affected in Papua region due to rapid amount GHG`s emissions into the atmosphere by increasing average temperature about 0.7oC, minimum temperature (0.7oC) and maximum temperature (1.2oC) during period 1996 – 2005. Other effects of climate change the decreased rainfall up to 26% per month in the last decade, 50% reduced total agriculture productivity, expanded malaria diseases, and increased extreme condition such as drought with intensity of forest fire detected in Sorong due to inter-annual climate variability events, such as the El-Niño event and flood due to the La-Niña event. However, it is difficult task to build mitigation and adaptation planning in the region or local scale due to the lack information, the lack human resources, and local topography and phenomena. In that case, so far, no study has been conducted in Papua region to build mitigation and adaptation planning for carbon management. Therefore, this study tries to promote a carbon management program for help local government to solve forest environmental problems consideration of climate change.

Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (260) ◽  
pp. 604-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Pavlides ◽  
Chris Gosden

The growing story of early settlement in the northwest Pacific islands is moving from coastal sites into the rainforest. Evidence of Pleistocene cultural layers have been discovered in open-site excavations at Yombon, an area containing shifting hamlets, in West New Britain's interior tropical rainforest. These sites, the oldest in New Britain, may presently stand as the oldest open sites discovered in rainforest anywhere in the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-382
Author(s):  
Rainer Günther ◽  
Stephen Richards

We describe six new species of the microhylid frog genus Xenorhina from the southern slopes of Papua New Guinea’s central cordillera and adjacent lowlands, based on a combination of morphological (including osteology) and bioacoustic features. All of the new species are fossorial or terrestrial inhabitants of tropical rainforest habitats and belong to a group of Xenorhina having a single, enlarged odontoid spike on each vomeropalatine bone. Advertisement calls and habitat preferences are described for each species, one of which is amongst the smallest hitherto members of the genus. Description of these six species brings the total number of Xenorhina known to 40 and emphasises the importance of the high-rainfall belt that extends along the southern flanks of New Guinea’s central cordillera as a hotspot of Melanesian amphibian diversity.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7333 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Maria Cardoso da Silva ◽  
Alessandro Rapini ◽  
Luis Cláudio F. Barbosa ◽  
Roger R. Torres

In a world where changes in land cover and climate happen faster than ever due to the expansion of human activities, narrowly distributed species are predicted to be the first to go extinct. Studies projecting species extinction in tropical regions consider either habitat loss or climate change as drivers of biodiversity loss but rarely evaluate them together. Here, the contribution of these two factors to the extinction risk of narrowly distributed species (with ranges smaller than 10,000 km2) of seed plants endemic to a fifth-order watershed in Brazil (microendemics) is assessed. We estimated the Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) of these watersheds (areas with microendemics) and projected three scenarios of land use up to the year 2100 based on the average annual rates of habitat loss in these watersheds from 2000 to 2014. These scenarios correspond to immediate conservation action (scenario 1), long-term conservation action (scenario 2), and no conservation action (scenario 3). In each scenario, areas with microendemics were classified into four classes: (1) areas with low risk, (2) areas threatened by habitat loss, (3) areas threatened by climate change, and (4) areas threatened by climate change and habitat loss. We found 2,354 microendemic species of seed plants in 776 areas that altogether cover 17.5% of Brazil. Almost 70% (1,597) of these species are projected to be under high extinction risk by the end of the century due to habitat loss, climate change, or both, assuming that these areas will not lose habitat in the future due to land use. However, if habitat loss in these areas continues at the prevailing annual rates, the number of threatened species is projected to increase to more than 85% (2,054). The importance of climate change and habitat loss as drivers of species extinction varies across phytogeographic domains, and this variation requires the adoption of retrospective and prospective conservation strategies that are context specific. We suggest that tropical countries, such as Brazil, should integrate biodiversity conservation and climate change policies (both mitigation and adaptation) to achieve win-win social and environmental gains while halting species extinction.


Mammalia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pita K. Amick ◽  
Katerina Sam ◽  
Gendio Drumo ◽  
Pagi S. Toko ◽  
Vojtech Novotny

Abstract Bats represent an important, but poorly known component of mammal diversity in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Our surveys in two altitudinal rainforest gradients recorded 43 bat species of which six (Dobsonia minor, D. praedatrix, Hipposideros calcaratus, H. maggietaylorae, Miniopterus australis, Miniopterus sp.) fell outside of their known altitudinal ranges. This enlargement could reflect the lack of past sampling, or a genuine range extension, potentially in response to climate change. Our study highlights the importance of baseline data on the altitudinal distribution of vertebrates, including bats, in PNG for the monitoring of their response to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Senent-Aparicio ◽  
Sitian Liu ◽  
Julio Pérez-Sánchez ◽  
Adrián López-Ballesteros ◽  
Patricia Jimeno-Sáez

Climate change and the land-use and land-cover changes (LULC) resulting from anthropic activity are important factors in the degradation of an ecosystem and in the availability of a basin’s water resources. To know how these activities affect the quantity of the water resources of basins, such as the Segura River Basin, is of vital importance. In this work, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used for the study of the abovementioned impacts. The model was validated by obtaining a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.88 and a percent bias (PBIAS) of 17.23%, indicating that SWAT accurately replicated monthly streamflow. Next, land-use maps for the years of 1956 and 2007 were used to establish a series of scenarios that allowed us to evaluate the effects of these activities on both joint and individual water resources. A reforestation plan applied in the basin during the 1970s caused that the forest area had almost doubled, whereas the agricultural areas and shrubland had been reduced by one-third. These modifications, together with the effect of climate change, have led to a decrease of 26.3% in the quantity of generated water resources, not only due to climate change but also due to the increase in forest area.


Solid Earth ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. K. Rajashekhar Rao

Abstract. The present study attempts to employ potassium (K) release parameters to identify soil-quality degradation due to changed land use patterns in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam) farms of the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Rapid population increase in the region increased pressure on the land to intensify subsistence production mainly by reducing fallow periods. Such continuous cropping practice coupled with lack of K fertilization practices could lead to a rapid loss of soil fertility and soil-resource degradation. The study aims to evaluate the effects of crop intensification on the K-release pattern and identify soil groups vulnerable to K depletion. Soils with widely differing exchangeable and non-exchangeable K contents were sequentially extracted for periods between 1 and 569 h in 0.01 M CaCl2, and K-release data were fitted to four mathematical models: first order, power, parabolic diffusion and Elovich equations. Results showed two distinct parts in the K-release curves, and 58–80% of total K was released to solution phase within 76 h (first five extractions) with 20–42% K released in the later parts (after 76 h). Soils from older farms that were subjected to intensive and prolonged land use showed significantly (P < 0.05) lower cumulative K-release potential than the farms recently brought to cultivation (new farms). Among the four equations, first-order and power equations best described the K-release pattern; the constant b, an index of K-release rates, ranged from 0.005 to 0.008 mg kg−1 h−1 in the first-order model and was between 0.14 and 0.83 mg kg−1 h−1 in the power model for the soils. In the non-volcanic soils, model constant b values were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than the volcanic soils, thus indicating the vulnerability of volcanic soils to K deficiency. The volcanic soils cropped for several crop cycles need immediate management interventions either through improved fallow management or through mineral fertilizers plus animal manures to sustain productivity.


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