When fires consume Kalimantan’s wildlife home

When forest and land fires strike Kalimantan, public attention usually focuses on burned areas, hotspots, smoke and economic losses. A less frequently measured loss is the destruction of wildlife habitat.

Fire does not stop at conservation boundaries. It can move from cleared land into scrub, secondary forest, swamp forest and peatland. When fires recur, the issue is not only how many hectares have burned, but how much living space wildlife has lost and how long ecosystems will need to recover.

Kalimantan’s forests shelter Borneo elephants, rhinos, orangutans, sun bears, clouded leopards, golden cats, marbled cats, proboscis monkeys and hornbills, along with many other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and smaller organisms. Each species has different ecological needs, but all depend on habitat that still functions. When forests burn, the loss extends beyond the trees to the wider chain of life.

The Borneo elephant, Elephas maximus borneensis, needs extensive feeding vegetation, water and routes that allow groups to move as habitat conditions change. Its population is already highly limited. The article cites an IUCN estimate of about 1,000 Borneo elephants remaining in the wild, including around 400 reproductive adults, while about 60 percent of their forest habitat has disappeared over the past four decades.

Fires remove grasses, shrubs, undergrowth and young trees. As food becomes scarce, elephants may seek other sources in plantations, farms and settlements across an already fragmented landscape. The resulting human-elephant conflict can therefore emerge as an ecological consequence of habitat loss. The situation is even more sensitive for the Sumatran rhinoceros in Kalimantan, whose very small population makes every individual and its habitat highly important for conservation. Fires can remove its food plants, protective vegetation, movement routes and the microhabitat it needs to survive.