Today from afternoon until evening, here, at the BKSDA Office in Pontianak, a lot of action took place, many people appeared, mainly fellows from NGOs, including WWF and Titian Foundation, as well as media representatives.

The reason for this extraordinary happening was the arrest of a salesman of wild animals for illegal trade of a 6 month old male Orangutan baby this afternoon. The sale of the Orangutan to a fellow of an NGO with potential buyers from Jakarta was planned long time before. The negotiation process between them had been going on intensively for 2 weeks until an initial transaction agreement was reached on last Friday, which then was cancelled and postponed to today. As result of a very good coordination and collaboration between NGOs, SPORCE, and the police, the salesman was arrested at the end along with one Orangutan baby as evidence.

I saw that the Orangutan was in healthy condition, and just recently (this evening), a veterinarian came to check its health. Several people say that this is the first time a direct (red-handed) arrest was made against illegal trading of orangutan in West Kalimantan.

That's the breaking news... Kind regards, Ismet

Created: 22 June 2010

Friday 4th of June 2010 was a remarkable day for the implementation of FORCLIME. Dr. Haryadi Himawan, the Secretary of PHKA - Ministry of Forestry had invited for the opening ceremony of FORCLIME office in Pontianak.

Balai Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam (BKSDA) Kalimantan Barat at Ahmad Yani Street 151 in Pontianak is the the host of the new  FORCLIME office in West Kalimantan. The office space will be occupied by Forclime component 3, which is dealing with the Heart of Borneo Initiative.

West Kalimantan  is an important province for  GTZ-FORCLIME activities. The District of Kapuas Hulu, located in the Heart of Borneo (HoB) is beside Malinau and Berau (East Kalimantan) one of the 3 choosen districts for the Indonesian German Forests and Climate Change Programme and the different components will develop activities in the District. Three of four national parks in the HoB area are also located in the province of West Kalimantan.

In order  to develop and implement programme activities related to nature conservation and sustainable development in bio-diverse area of the  Heart of Borneo (HoB) , Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan Province, becomes a strategic location for a programme office for GTZ-FORCLIME , since most of the main partners are located  in Pontianak or the closer surroundings of the city.

Dr. Haryadi Himawan, the Secretary of PHKA - Ministry of Forestry, expressed his hope for a lasting and fruitful cooperation in his key note speech during the opening ceremony of the office. The overall goals of GTZ FORCLIME Programme could be acchieved effectively and  generating ownership among the partners.

Similar hope to facilitate more directly and efficiently the technical cooperation also has been expressed by Rolf Krezdorn-Programme Director of GTZ-FORCLIME.

Mr. Endy Dionisius – BAPPEDA Kalimantan Barat representative, and Mr. Edy Sutiyarto-Head of BKSDA Kalimantan Barat expressed their hope for a solid partnership and expectation toward an impact oriented collaboration in their speeches at the ceremony.

During the afternoon a meeting between the 4 National Park Directors, NGO, BKSDA and GTZ was hold.

Created: 04 June 2010

Today the English and Bahasa Indonesia version of our FORCLIME project website went online.

Created: 20 May 2010