The process of rehabilitation of mined forest lands toward degraded forest ecosystem recovery in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

An overview of mined forest lands at East and Central KalimantanIndonesia was conducted to determine most important influencing factors supporting degraded forest ecosystem recovery. Consecutivestages of rehabilitation processes consist of reclamation-backfilling,re-contouring,re-shaping,topsoils spreading, and revegetation-land preparation,planting,maintenance covering minimum topsoils spreading, soil acidity, plant hole size, soil improvementapplication (dolomite,organic-inorganicfertilizers), vegetation planting (plant species selection-qualityandsite matching-verified plantmaterial sources,hardening-off,planting techniques), and land management implementation. The potential degraded forest ecosystemrecovery was shown by cover crops and fast growing species plant and undergrowths, survive primary species, decreasing surface run-off/overland flows following increasing soil infiltration capacities, decreasing soil erosion rate and it’s erosion hazard, and an improvedenvironments as habitat for invading wildlifes. The general characteristics of potential degraded forest ecosystem recovery afterrehabilitation processes are: spread soil materials thickness > 70 cm, bulk density+ 1,2 g.ml-1, soil acidity > 5,5, macro nutrients (N, P,K, Ca, Mg)-low to moderate, decreasing overland water flow following increasing soil infiltration capacity-moderate to high, decreasingsoil erosion rate-very low to moderate, decreasing erosion hazard level-very slight to moderate, growing plants of fast growing specieswith significant layersand land cover, and growing interline planted primary species. Viewed from the ecological aspect, in therevegetated degraded forest lands wildlife such as insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals were found feeding and alsopermanently living in ecosystem regeneration following gradual habitat improvement. Theecosystem status was identified as aprogression towards degraded forest ecosystem recovery.