Abstract
The expansion of oil-palm plantations in Indonesia is often blamed as the driving causes of deforestation and impacts on environmental changes including the destructed biodiversity. Our understanding regarding environmental impacts on biodiversity is still limited. We address this issue by examining the diversity of butterfly and bird species under two type habitat conditions in Central Borneo. We calculated the butterfly and bird species number, richness, evenness, similarity, and composition inside the established oil-plantation area comprising four large-scale plantations and seven smallholding plantations, as habitat after plantation establishment. In comparison, we did so similarly inside secondary forest and shrubs, as habitat before oil-palm plantation establishment. Our results revealed that the habitat after plantation establishment exhibited a higher number of butterfly and bird species than the habitat beforehand. However, the richness, evenness, and similarity indices for the species revealed variations, which were affected by dominant species in two habitats. The establishment of oil-palm plantation brought about significant impacts on the composition of species and affected the species similarities between two habitats. The oil-palm plantation landscape and reserved forest vegetation were essential in supporting diversity and ecological role of species on habitat condition after oil-palm plantation establishment.
Highlights
The challenges of forest management in the tropics as a center of biodiversity is balancing the environmental conservation with utilization for agriculture
The high economy value has encouraged the establishment and expands of the oil-palm plantation. Such oil-palm plantation establishment brings about changes in the land cover at the concession area administered by the estate companies and the plantation area owned by communities
The decrease in the number of bird species at BLP location could occur, as the secondary forest that previously existed before the establishment of the oil-palm plantation had contributed quite enormously and favorably to the number of bird species compared to the condition of their habitat after the presence of such plantation
Summary
The challenges of forest management in the tropics as a center of biodiversity is balancing the environmental conservation with utilization for agriculture. As an agrarian country that relies its development income on agriculture and plantation sectors, Indonesia have to manage the landscape of forests and land by optimizing the natural resource use, concurrently ensuring the sustainability of biodiversity. The high economy value has encouraged the establishment and expands of the oil-palm plantation Such oil-palm plantation establishment brings about changes in the land cover at the concession area administered by the estate companies and the plantation area owned by communities. Those trend changes are legal, those trends keep prompting a strong accusation from several institutions regarding the impacts of oil-palm establishment on deforestation and environmental changes, including the biodiversity (Sawit Watch 2017)
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