My country Indonesia is a country allocated between Indian and Pacific Ocean. Specifically located in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is undoubtedly the world’s largest island country.

Consists of more than 17,000 islands which 990 are permanently inhabited, it is often called as the most populated Archipelago. Furthermore, this country is also the fourteenth largest country in terms of land area, and seventh largest in terms of combined sea and land area. Population wise, Indonesia has about 261 million people and held the rank of the world’s fourth most populous country. As the result of being in the middle of two oceans, this country has a hot and humid tropical climate; it’s like summer all year.

The majorities of Indonesian’s lands are also fertile because Indonesia has more volcanoes than any countries, most of volcanoes are active. Due to all of these conditions, Indonesia held the reputation of being one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and must be conserved.BIODIVERSITY OF INDONESIALooking from the forestry side of Indonesia, it has a lot of forest as one of the habitat of biodiversity.

 Indonesian forest is the home to approximately 11% of the world’s flowering plants species, 13% of mammals, 6% of its amphibians, 7% of reptiles, 16% of birds and 14% of fishes. Conservation International, an American nonprofit environmental organization considers Indonesia to be one of 17 “megadiversity”. Not only that, Indonesia also ranks first in the world for number of mammals’ species, palm trees, swallowtail butterfly, and parrot bird species.Sumatra, it is one of the biggest inhabited island in Indonesia and sixth largest island in the world. The east coast of this island is dominated by Mangrove forests, and the west coast is supported by various types of Coastal Forests. Meanwhile, in the south of this island, large freshwater swamps could be found. Sumatra is one of the most volcanic islands, numerous volcanic mountains such as Mt.

 Kerinci, Mt. Sinabung, and Mt. Merapi.  This, affect the wide range of habitats in Sumatra and has been large part responsibility of the island’s biodiversity. This island has the most mammal species in Indonesia. Nine of its species are endemic to Sumatra, and 14 are endemic to Mentawi Island (an island nearby Sumatra). Sumatra also has 22 species of Asian mammals, these species could be found nowhere in Indonesia beside Sumatra.

Some notable famous mammals that could be found in Sumatra are Sumatran Rhinoceros, Sumatran Elephant, Sumatran Tiger, and Sumatran forest dog, all of these species are endangered and going extinct in other parts of Indonesia. There are also small islands associated with Sumatra Main Island such as Mentawi Islands and the smaller islands; Simeulue and Enggano Islands. Uniquely, small isolated island like Mentawi have interesting endemic mammals that could only be found in the island itself. This might happens because of speciation of the species from Sumatra and Mentawi. These endemic mammals are; Pagai Islands Horshoe Bat, MentawiMacaque, Mentawi Snub-nosed Monkey, Mentawi Leaf Monkey, Mentawi Gibbon, Loga Squirrel, Soksak Squirrel, Mentawi Black-cheeked Flying Squirrel, Mentawi Orange-cheeked Flying Squirrel, Mentawi Civet, Giant Mentawi Rat, Mentawi Forest Rat, Mentawi Rat, and Mentawi Pencil-tailed Tree Mouse. The leopard, Panthera pardus (found on Sumatra), and the Wild Dog, Cuon alpinus (found on Java), are not found in Borneo, but it has more endemic land mammal species than Sumatra (44 versus 23, MacKinnon et al.

1986). Borneo has 13 species of primates and 10 species of tree shrews, which is more than any other Asian mainland or island of similar area. Charismatic mammals in Kalimantan include the Asian Elephant (Elephasmaximus), Banteng (Bos javanicus), Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus), Bornean Gibbon (Hylobates muellerii), Flat-headed Cat (Prionalurisplaniceps), Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) and the Sun Bear (Helarctos melayanus). A great deal of public concern has recently been focused on the impact of the destruction of the Kalimantan (and Sumatran) Lowland Rainforests on the survival of the Orangutan. Recent discoveries of substantial new populations of orangutan in Central, West and East Kalimantan, including in secondary forests, have led to an estimation doubling the population to 50,000-60,000 individuals for the combined population size in Kalimantan and Sumatra. However, given the rate of degradation of their preferred Lowland Rainforest habitats, it is still predicted that there will be no wild orangutans surviving in 20 years’ time (Jakarta Post 2/3/2004).

Borneo has 420 species of resident birds compared to 465 on Sumatra and 340 on Java and 240 on Sulawesi. Thirty-seven of these are endemic to Borneo. Some 28 Bornean bird species, including 4 endemic genera (Haematortyx, Chlamydochaera, Chlorocharis and Oculocincta), are restricted to the Bornean mountains – many of these are restricted to montane habitats. They include the Storm’s Stork (Ciconia stormi), the Blackshouldered Ibis (Pseudibis davisoni), Galliformespheasants and the Straw Headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus zelanicus). MacKinnon et al.

(1986) consider that Borneo is also probably one of the richest islands of the Sunda Shelf for fishes, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates. It has at least 166 species of snakes, compared with 136 species on the Malay Peninsula, 150 species on Sumatra and 64 species on Sulawesi. It is also much richer in amphibians than the other Sundaic islands, with at least 100 species, (36 for Java, 29 for Sulawesi).Kalimantan, or familiarly known as the island of Boneo is the third largest island in the world.

This island supports the largest tropical rainforest in Indonesia. Kalimantan’s forest is the main center for distribution of Malesian flora and Indomalayan flora. The plants and animals of Kalimantan consist of a lot of Asian, Sudanic, and other type of species. Kalimantan is the richest of the Sudanic islands for plants; the island is a major center for plant diversity with 10,000 to 15,000 species of flowering plants. Borneo has at least 3,000 species of trees including 267 species of Dipterocarps one of the species of commercial trees in Southeast Asia. The island also has 2,000 species of orchids and 1,000 of ferns. Endemism levels in the island are high throughout all the plant groups. 3 – 10 for vertebrate groups, Kalimantan has a similar number of species to the smaller island of Sumatra.

For instance, it has 222 mammals compared with 196 on Sumatra and 183 on Java.One of the island in Indonesia is called the island of Bawean, about half way between Java and Kalimantan, has a distinctive Javanese flora, though some species do recorded unknown from Java. Kangean Island to the east, like Madura and Bali, has a slightly different flora than those in East Java.

Many plants are planted in Bogor Botanical Garden, West Java spectacular weeds throughout Indonesia. The most prominent is the Water Curve Eceng (Eichhornia crassipes), which now clog waterways in most of the islands, but there are others including Piper aduncum, Sagittaria platyphylla and Mikania micracantha. The Lowland Rain Forest in Java (and Bali) does not have one dominant species or one the dominant family of plants, and variability in species composition is such that it does not exist a typical set can be explained. However, four dominant species are common.

These are Artocarpus elasticus, Dysoxylumcaulostachyum, Langsat.Next Island of in Indonesia is Java Island, one of the most famous islands in Indonesia. With total number of various plant species, including weeds and cultivation species more than 6,500, of which 4,500 are genuinely from Java. Java has some of the common plants families such as Palmae, rattan, Calamusand Daemonorops and dipterocarps, and there are only 10 species if we compare it to the amount of 267 in Borneo and 105 in Sumatra. Around 16 plants are endemic to Java, 8 species habituated from mountains and 6 coming from forests. Java and Bali have mountains which are the habitat of fauna with the greatest relation and similarity with Sumatra and very different from Kalimantan. Despite having vast amount of land, Java’s species are less than others, could be caused by destruction of habitats by both natures and human behaviours.One of the highlight species Java has is the giant Rafflesia plant, one of the most spectacular species in the world.

In Java, two species of this flower that exist are the Rafflesia rochussenii and Rafflesia patma. The world is astounded with this plant as it has the characteristics of having no tem, no leaves and no real roots. The other famous species coming from Java is Edelweiss in Latin Anaphas javanica. This kind of plant could grow and reach 8 meters of height and has a stem with the thickness equal to a person’s feet. In addition of Java’s unique species is the lettuce tree or commonly called in Latin Pisonia grandis. As there are still a lot of forests in Java, interestingly in this island a gradient floristic of gradient exist.

This is proved by the existence of species habituated from rainforest could be find easier in west part of Java rather than Central and East Java. The coasts of Java are bordered by mangroves, as swamps were common before but now it has been converted to paddy fields and fish ponds. Another thing is, the number of species across Java decreases with altitude, with the number of plants from certain zone heights at 1000 m, 1500 m, 2000 m, and 2400 m to 2500 m and 3000 m. For example, 99% of the 217 species of orchids could be found between the heights of 800-1,200 m, though not exclusively. Although even it was aforementioned before that the richness of flora species is a bit different in West Java and other part of Java, the flora in the islands of West Java is generally not different from that other Java.

Even though, Karimunjawa Islands located in Central Java, it has some species that do not exist in the island, such as the rare tree of Ouratea arcta, and the floral affinity of this island is closer to Bangka and Kalimantan Island than to Java. Nusa Kambangan, located near by the southern coast of Central Java, has rare and endemic plant species such as Giant Voodoo Lily (Amorphophallus decus-silvae). This species has been protected by the government concerning the fact that it is an vulnerable species. However, recently about 30,000 trees are estimated to have been felled in Nusa Mining; the continuation of this activity will see the forests would only result of degradation in only a few more years.

 In Indonesia, coastline is estimated to be ranked as the second longest in the world. About two-thirds of coastline in Indonesia is protected by coral reefs. All types of reefs exist in Indonesia, including fringing reefs as the most common one, barrier reeds and patch reefs. Indonesia also has about 15% of the world’s coral reefs and it exists at the center of the world’s diversity of corals. This country has the highest number of coral species in the world. Won the certificate of Natural World Heritage Marine sites, seven are located in Indonesia. Coral reef ecosystems used to exist in growing city such as Jakarta but it has collapsed or has deteriorated drastically due to pollution. In Jakarta Bay, researchers had to travel 25 km offshore to find viable coral reef communities.

In Central Java, there was a study and research conducted in Pulau Panjang, the coral cay islands are threatened by sewage, sediment and aquaculture Coral bleaching event in 1983 caused large-scale mortality of reefs in the Sunda straits and at Kepulauan Seribu.Indonesia tried its best to conserve the biodiversity by building national parks. One of the national parks areas is Java; all the national parks in Java have been well selected and are the centers of diversity for some groups of animals and plants, with the possible exception of Pulau Seribu.

Sub-alpine and Montane Forests are really important to be conserved out of all Java’s type of biodiversity; the reason is because they are among the most intact areas of forest remaining in Java. Furthermore, they also contain a numerous of endemic species and many other species that are able to also live in their lower montane zones. There’re also conservation of Mangrove Forest in Alas PurwoNational Park and on two small islands on the north coast, D. Dua and R. Rambut.

 Rawa Pening is all that remains of a substantial lake before it became a peat swamp and then a reservoir. However, it retains a rich freshwater animal and plant community.