The Karimata Islands are a chain of small islands off the west coast of Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, the largest of which is (Pulau) Karimata, being about 20 km across (east-west), and situated at 1°37′S 108°53′E. Karimata has a wide range of ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

s, from mangroves and tropical rain forest in the lowlands to montane shrubland on the summit of the c.1000 metre mountain (a spectacular example of the Massenerhebung effect

Massenerhebung effect

The Massenerhebung effect describes variation in the tree line based on mountain size and location. In general, mountains surrounded by large ranges will tend to have higher tree lines than more isolated mountains due to heat retention and wind shadowing...

). The mountain is composed of granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

. A substantial population of cave swiftlet

Cave Swiftlet

The Cave Swiftlet is a species of swift in the Apodidae family.It is found in Indonesia and Malaysia.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . Downloaded on 24 July 2007....

s has historically been the source of birds nests for birds nest soup

Swiftlet

Swiftlets are birds contained within the four genera Aerodramus, Hydrochous, Schoutedenapus and Collocalia. They form the Collocaliini tribe within the swift family Apodidae. The group contains around thirty species mostly confined to southern Asia, south Pacific islands, and northeastern...

, but has decreased recently to near extirpation

Local extinction

Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...

, due to over harvesting by non-indigenous collectors who have been arriving from the mainland.

A number of small villages are situated on the coast, the largest of which is Padang, on the eastern tip of the island. The island is renowned by inhabitants of the west coast of Kalimantan

Kalimantan

In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....

 to have a serious malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

problem.

Dutch explorers visited the island a number of times, and there have been at least two recent visits by biologists. The island is classified as a nature reserve by the Indonesian government, but there has been no management of the area. There are rumours of plans for large tourist developments.