The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

G1.8.2. Significant Large Landscape-Level AreasGlobally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape-­‐level areaswhere viable populations of most if not all naturally occurring speciesexist in natural patterns of distribution and abundance;This HCV is equivalent to HCV 2 under the Global Toolkit and therevised HCV Toolkit for Indonesia. Under the revised Toolkit,three sub-­‐values are distinguished:HCV 2.1 Large landscapes with capacity to maintainnatural ecological dynamicsHCV 2.2 Areas that contain two or more contiguousecosystemsHCV 2.3 Areas with representative populations of mostnaturally occurring speciesThe potential presence of each HCV in the Project Zone isdiscussed in turn.HCV 2.1HCV 2.1 aims to identify large, relatively intact landscapeswith a capacity to maintain natural ecological processes anddynamics. HCV 2.1 seeks to ensure that management actionis taken to protect the interior and buffer zones of suchlandscapes.The Toolkit defines this HCV as forest blocks with cores of>20,000 in size after delineating (‘subtracting’) a 3-­‐km bufferalong the margin of the forest block.Roughly 36% (144,000 ha) of TPNP and 60% (59,960 ha) of theProject Area were classified as non-­‐forest in 2005, leaving anestimated combined total of c. 288,000 ha of forest, in variousforms, across the TPNP-­‐Project Area landscape. Though large intotal extent, landscape forest cover is rather fragmented,reflecting (i) deforestation along the Sekonyer, Air Besar, and AirKecil rivers and tributaries within TPNP, as well as the SeruyanRiver and its tributaries on the eastern border the Project Area;(ii) replacement of forest by grasslands and marshy swampswithin TPNP as a result of widespread fires triggered by loggingand small scale agricultural conversion; (iii) coastal deforestationextending northward into TPNP and the Project Area; and (iv)large scale forest conversion to oil palm in the northeast andnorthern sections of TPNP and the Project Area, respectively.This has created at least four major blocks of forest, illustrated inFigure 15. The first and largest block (Block 1) is situated in thenorth of TPNP and comprises an intact mosaic of freshwaterswamp, peat swamp, lowland MDF, and kerangas. Block 2 issituated south of Block 1 within TPNP, and is delineated by bandsof deforestation along the Air Besar River to the north and AirKecil River to the south. This block centers on a major peatswamp dome, inter-­‐digitated with various forms of freshwaterswamp and possibly tall kerangas. Block 3 is situated south ofBlock 2 within TPNP, separated from it by an arc of deforestationalong the Air Kecil River to the north. This block extendssouthward into the open wetland areas of southern TPNP andsoutheastward for c. 20 km along the northern edge of thesewetlands, terminating at the western boundary of the ProjectArea. Block 4 is situated in the central portion of the ProjectArea, extending westward into TPNP and northward for nearly 30km. This block is largest and most intact in the south, where itcenters on a peat swamp forest spanning the border of TPNP andthe Project area, and grades northward into a long narrow arm offorest classifed as MDF, but which is also likely to support variousforms of kerangas.66