Indonesia: Interview / Overview of the ecology of the 17,508 island archipelago
The Republic of Indonesia in Southeast Asia comprises a staggering
17,508 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. It is the world’s
largest archipelagic state and with a population of 222 million people
(according to 2006 figures) it is also the world’s fourth most
populous country.
Read an Interview with ProFauna here :
http://10000birds.com/profauna-indonesia.htm
Indonesia’s size, tropical climate, and archipelagic geography,
support the world’s second highest level of biodiversity after Brazil.
Its five largest islands – Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (the Indonesian
part of Borneo), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea), and
Sulawesi – contain some of the world’s rarest wildlife, and an almost
overwhelming number of bird species many of which now find themselves
on the wrong end of large-scale deforestation, industrialisation, and
smuggling for the trade in wild birds.
Putting that into figures Indonesia has close to 400 endemic birds: of these about sixty-one species are threatened: thirty-seven species are listed as Vulnerable, twenty-three are Endangered and eleven species are listed as Critical on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (a total of 132). Included
in that list are some of the world’s rarest and most rapidly declining
parrot species. Of about 85 parrot species in Indonesia, 14 of them
are classified as threatened.
Many of these species will probably be hardly known by many birders outside of the region, but they do include species such as the Red-and-blue and Black-headed Lories Eos histrio and Lorius lory, and some of the planet’s rarest cockatoos, eg Palm Cockatoo Probosciger atterimus, Goffin’s Cockatoo Cacatua goffini and the recently re-discovered Yellow-crested Abbott’s Cockatoo Cacatua sulphurea abbottii which has a population of just ten wild indivduals.
Value this writer by clicking / reading full text here:
http://10000birds.com/profauna-indonesia.htm
To keep this blog going it has to keep growing! What’s most essential
is you click below to: comment, email, repost, share this…