The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

HCV 1.1 Support Function to Protected AreasHCV 1.1 draws attention to areas that contain or providebiodiversity support function to protection or conservation areasin or near the Project Zone to ensure that management actionsare taken to maintain or enhance the function of such areas.HCV 1.1 is considered present in the Project Zone, given itscurrent condition (at least partially forested) and direct contiguitywith the eastern boundary of TPNP, a protected area of very highbiodiversity conservation importance. The Project Zone providesvital biodiversity support function as a buffer zone of TPNP, byexpanding the effective area of lowland forest cover in thegreater Tanjung Puting landscape by 14% (OFI 2008), as describedabove under Sections G1.8.1-­‐2. This buffer zone functionexpands available habitat for orangutans and a wide variety ofother threatened or protected plant and animal species in thenational park.The Project Zone also contains legally mandated protection zonesalong riparian-­‐zone floodplains of the Seruyan River and itsnumerous tributaries, as well as lake shore buffer zonesassociated with undiscovered wetland areas potentially presentwithin the freshwater/peat swamp mosaic of habitats in theProject Zone, and the western shores of the Sembuluh Lakesystem overlapping the eastern boundary of the Project Zone.Key threats to this HCV include forest loss due to fire and oil palmconversion, degradation of the biodiversity value of the bufferthrough logging and degradation of riparian and lake side bufferzones through small-­‐scale conversion for agriculture anddevelopment of human settlements in lakeside environments. Allof the conservation efforts described in more detail below tomaintain HCVs 1.3, 1.4, 2.2, and 2.3 will ensure positive netimpacts on HCV 1.1 by the project.HCV 1.2 Critically Endangered SpeciesConservation activities of the project will have net positiveimpacts on HCV 1.2 species as follows:Birds and Mammals. No HCV 1.2 birds or mammals are thoughtto be present in the project zone.Plants. Twenty-­‐five HCV 1.2 plants were identified as likelypresent in the Rimba Raya Project Zone (see Table 11). Thesespecies occur in various forms (freshwater swamp forest, peatswamp forest and lowland dipterocarp forest) and all areconsidered CR due primarily to habitat loss. Proposed HCV 1.2management will address precisely this threat, pursued in parallelwith HCV 1.3 and 3 (see below), where the goal will be tomaintain and manage sufficient habitat to ensure long-­‐termpopulation viability of all threatened, protected and restrictedrange species.At present, insufficient data are available to estimate existingpopulation sizes for HCV 1.2 plants in the Project Zone, or todetermine minimum necessary population sizes to ensure long-­termviability. However, as the project aims to retain all remnantnatural forest, successful conservation measures taken by theproject to protect natural forests will serve to increase long-­‐termpopulation viability of these HCV 1.2 species.It should also be noted that the HCV Toolkit for Indonesia makesprovision for limited harvesting of CR plants of demonstrableeconomic importance – e.g., locally common dipterocarp species256