Kutai National Park is a lowland national park

National park

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...

 located on the east coast of Borneo Island

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....

, in the East Kalimantan

East Kalimantan

East Kalimantan is the second largest Indonesian province, located on the Kalimantan region on the east of Borneo island. The resource-rich province has two major cities, Samarinda and Balikpapan...

 province 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...

, few minutes south of the equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

.

Geography

The park is located north of the Mahakam river and includes several lakes: Danau Maau, Santan, Besar and Sirapan. It is adjacent to the towns of Bontang

Bontang

Bontang is a city on the eastern coast of the island Borneo in Indonesia. It is in the province East Kalimantan.- History :The etymology of Bontang refers to the town’s traditional status throughout history as a humble village populated mostly by immigrants. ‘Bon’ can refer in Indonesian to...

 and Sangatta and 120 km north of the provincial capital Samarinda

Samarinda

Samarinda is the capital of the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. The city lies on the banks of the Mahakam River. It is the most populous city in East Kalimantan with a population of 726,223...

. There are several traditional Bugis

Bugis

The Bugis are the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, the southwestern province of Sulawesi, Indonesia's third largest island. Although many Bugis live in the large port cities of Makassar and Parepare, the majority are farmers who grow wet rice on the...

 settlements within the national park.
The Kutai National Park extends over an area of 2,000 km², part of the former Kutai Game Reserve which has been protected since the 1970s. However this status did not prevent the logging of a third of the forest in subsequent years. In an attempt to prevent further deforestation the Kutai National Park was established in 1982. Nevertheless, the great Borneo fires of 1982/83 destroyed another 60% of the forest. Thus only 30% of the primary growth forest remains.

Ecology

Kutai National Park is dominated by a Dipterocarpaceae

Dipterocarpaceae

Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek and refers to the two-winged fruit...

 lowland tropical rainforest and has 958 species of flora, including 8 of the world's 9 genus of Dipterocarpaceae family, 41 species of orchids and 220 species of medical plants. The other vegetation types include coastal mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 forest, freshwater swamp forest

Freshwater swamp forest

Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes...

 and kerangas forest

Kerangas forest

Sundaland heath forest, also known as Kerangas forest, is a type of tropical moist forest found on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as on the Indonesian islands of Belitung and Bangka, which lie to the west of Borneo.-Setting:The word Kerangas,...

.

The park provides habitat to 10 species of primates, 90 species of mammals and 300 species of birds. Some of them are Orangutan

Orangutan

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

, Malayan Sun Bear

Sun Bear

The sun bear , sometimes known as the honey bear, is a bear found primarily in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia; North-East India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Southern China, Peninsular Malaysia, and the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.-Description:The sun bear...

, Sambar deer

Sambar Deer

The Sambar ' is a large deer native to southern and southeast Asia. Although it primarily refers to R. unicolor, the name "Sambar" is also sometimes used to refer to the Philippine Deer and the Rusa Deer...

, Banteng

Banteng

The banteng , also known as tembadau, is a species of wild cattle found in Southeast Asia.Banteng have been domesticated in several places in Southeast Asia, and there are around 1.5 million domestic banteng, which are called Bali cattle. These animals are used as working animals and for their meat...

, Maroon Leaf Monkey

Maroon Leaf Monkey

The maroon langur, maroon leaf monkey, or red leaf monkey is a species of primate in the Cercopithecidae family. It is found on the southeast Asian island of Borneo and the nearby smaller Karimata....

, White-fronted Leaf Monkey, Hose's Leaf Monkey, Proboscis Monkey

Proboscis Monkey

The proboscis monkey or long-nosed monkey, known as the bekantan in Malay, is a reddish-brown arboreal Old World monkey that is endemic to the south-east Asian island of Borneo...

, Bornean Gibbon

Müller's Bornean Gibbon

Müller's Bornean gibbon , also known as the grey gibbon, is a primate in the Hylobatidae or gibbon family.Unlike other gibbon species, Müller's Bornean gibbon does not show sexual dimorphism in its fur coloration. Its fur is grey or brown colored with a ring of bright fur around its face. On the...

, Clouded Leopard

Clouded Leopard

The clouded leopard is a felid found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China, and has been classified as vulnerable in 2008 by IUCN...

, Black Flying Squirrel

Black Flying Squirrel

The Black Flying Squirrel or Large Black Flying Squirrel is a species of rodent in the Sciuridae family.It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia.-References:...

, Marbled Cat

Marbled Cat

The Marbled Cat is a small wild cat of South and Southeast Asia. Since 2002 it has been listed as vulnerable by IUCN as it occurs at low densities, and its total effective population size is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with no single population numbering more than...

, Flat-headed Cat

Flat-headed Cat

The Flat-headed Cat is a small wild cat patchily distributed in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra. Since 2008, it has been listed as Endangered by the IUCN due to destruction of wetlands in their habitat...

, Yellow-throated Marten, Otter Civet

Otter Civet

The Otter Civet, Cynogale bennettii, is a semi-aquatic civet found in forests, primarily lowland, near rivers and swampy areas of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo. An additional population, only known from single specimen, occurs in northern Vietnam...

, and Smooth-coated Otter

Smooth-coated Otter

The Smooth-coated Otter is a species of otter, the only extant representative of the genus Lutrogale. The species is found from southern Pakistan and parts of the India east to Southeast Asia, and there is a disjunct population in Iraq...

.

The number of orangutans was found to have decreased dramatically, from 600 recorded in 2004 to about 60 in 2009. However a survey conducted in 2010 identified over 2,000 orangutans to be inhabiting the park.

External links

• Official site: http://www.tnkutai.com/index.php/en/kontak-kami