TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Komodo dragon, anoa, babirusa, and standardwing are the only wildlife inhabiting Wallacea. The area covering Sulawesi, the Nusa Tenggara islands, Maluku, and East Timor is the home to one out of five species of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and endemic fish in Indonesia amounting to no less than 2,071 species.
If the animal becomes extinct in Wallacea, it will be extinct in the world because its habitat remains solely in this region.
“This also portrays how fragile the wildlife in Wallacea is against extinction," said Siti Nurmailiati Prijono, from theIndonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
The dangers of extinction have pushed bird conservation institution Burung Indonesia along with the Wildlife Conservation Society, BirdLife International, Samdhana Institute, and PKSPL-Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) to prepare a profile of Wallacea’s ecosystem. LIPI and the Forestry Ministry are also involved in the project that will be planned over the next eight months.
Wallacea is on Indonesia’s eastern side separating Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan in the west and Papua in the east. It has been chosen as a biodiversity hotspot and a location for the investment of CEPF (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund).
The CEPF has funded this location along with the Agence Francaise de Developement (AFD) France, Conservation International, European Union, Global Environmental Facility, Japan, MacArthur Foundation, and World Bank. For the past 12 years, the project that was initiated by these donors has funded biodiversity programs in 60 countries. Sundaland in western Indonesian and the Malaya Peninsula was completed two years ago.
LIPI director of conservation areas and protected forest management, Bamang Dahono Aji, says Wallacea has an extremely important role as one of the world’s 35 hotspots. Over half of Indonesia’s total 27.2 million hectares of conservation land is in this region.
Forestry Ministry records show that Wallacea has up to 521 conservation areas in Indonesia, including 12 national parks on land, four national parks in the ocean, of a total 50 national parks in the country.
Wallacea is home to 57 percent of endemic birds in Indonesia. Based on data from Burung Indonesia, at least 10 out of 23 endemic bird habitats and 45 percent of the whole bird species habitat is in the region that was explored by Wallace for almost eight years, hence the name Wallacea.
Wallacea’s role for the ecosystem is also vital. One third of all coral species in the world is in the Wallacea ocean conservation area amounting up to 5.4 million hectares. This makes it the key center of coral biodiversity in the world, or the coral triangle.
Unfortunately, Wallacea is currently categorized as a critical ecosystem. The biodiversity in its region is threatened by habitat destruction, overuse, and invasion of foreign species.
According to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are 535 original Wallacea species in danger of global extinction. Out of that amount, corals are on the top of the list with 172 species, followed by plant taxa (67 species), and mammals (66 species).
MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI