Betung Kerihun National Park (Indonesian: Taman Nasional Betung Kerihun) is a national park in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. The park was created in 1995 and covers an area of 8,000 square kilometers (3,100 square miles), which is about 5.5 percent of the total area of West Kalimantan Province. Along with the 2,000 square kilometer (800 square mile) Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary in Malaysia, it has been proposed to form a World Heritage Site called the "Transborder Rainforest Heritage of Borneo."

Topography and ecology

Betung Kerihun National Park has hills and mountains, with elevations ranging from 150 meters (490 feet) to nearly 1,800 meters (5,910 feet). The land has steep slopes, and more than half of the park has slopes steeper than 45%. The tallest mountains are Mount Kerihun (1,790 meters or 5,870 feet) and Mount Lawit (1,767 meters or 5,800 feet). The park is located near the beginning of the Kapuas River.

The park is mostly covered by two types of forest areas: Borneo montane rain forests, which cover about two-thirds of the park, and Borneo lowland rain forests.

Flora and fauna

In the lowland forests, the tallest trees are dipterocarp species. These are replaced by oak species (Quercus) such as Lithocarpus and Castanopsis at higher elevations. At least 97 orchid species and 49 palm species have been found in the Park.

The park has a wide variety of animals, including 300 bird species (25 found only in Borneo), at least 162 fish species, and at least 54 mammal species. The park is home to the endangered Bornean orangutan and seven other primate species: Müller's Bornean gibbon, white-fronted surili, maroon leaf monkey, southern pig-tailed macaque, crab-eating macaque, Sunda slow loris, and Horsfield's tarsier.

Human habitation

Several Dayak tribes, such as the Dayak Iban, Dayak Taman, and Dayak Bukat, live in the park. There are 12 villages in and near the park. Two of these villages, Nanga Bungan and Tanjung Lokang, are located inside the park. Six other villages are near the park’s edge. These people rely on hunting, gathering non-timber forest products, and farming. Their farming method involves moving to new areas to grow crops, which is called shifting cultivation.

Conservation and threats

Betung Kerihun National Park was first created as a 600,000-hectare protected area in 1982 by a decree from the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1992, the area was increased to 800,000 hectares, and its conservation status was changed to a national park in 1995. The Betung Kerihun Park Management Unit was officially opened by the Minister of Forestry in 1997. Today, the park has 57 full-time employees and 20 honorary members. Of these, 24 park rangers oversee operations at each of the four field posts across the 800,000-hectare area.

Major threats to Betung Kerihun include illegal logging and the hunting of wildlife. Data from WWF collected in 2002 showed that about 31,000 trees were cut down illegally in the park. Reports indicate that the hunting of critically endangered orangutans is increasing rapidly. Between West and Central Kalimantan forests, approximately 10 to 15 orangutans are captured each month and sold in markets in Indonesian cities such as Jakarta and Denpasar.