Forest Protection in the Segama Floodplain

Since 2012 we have been exploring possibilities to realize a wildlife corridor along the Segama river.

Using satellite images and maps, as well as by exploring by boat, helicopter, car and on foot we try to get an overview of the situation.

By law, the plantation operators would actually have to leave a riparian strip to nature. In reality, however, oil palms have been planted right up to the water’s edge. We identify remaining forest fragments on the Segama without owners, which we propose to the authorities as new protected areas. In the long term, through enforcement of the legally required buffer zone, new protected areas, and strategic land acquisitions, we aim to create a forest corridor along the entire river from source to sea, linking 1.5 million ha of key areas for the survival of Borneo’s threatened flora and fauna, and restoring the river ecosystem suffering from erosion and chemicals from plantations.

For this purpose, about 200km of deforested riverbanks have to be renaturalized. Even if in some places only one bank would be feasible because of settlements, along the hardly populated Segama the renaturation is still conceivable on both river banks.