Freshwater, Nusa Tenggara and Maluku
Biodiversity and Tropical Forests in Indonesia.

Although limited data on watershed sub-catchment areas and length of river systems is available, it is not particularly useful to assess the extent of water systems. This is because the smaller and more rugged islands tend to identify more and smaller tributaries as separate catchments. For example, Nusa Tenggara claims to have more river catchments than Sumatra and Kalimantan combined, and nearly as much total river length. Because of these issues of scale and definition, it is difficult to compare the extent of water systems in Nusa Tenggara and Maluku with the other islands. However, the concept of ‘critical lands’ and the national land rehabilitation program provide some insight into land and watershed management needs as defined by the GoI.

Another 45% is degraded forest and 2% is entirely deforested. Of this "forest area," about 26% is in protection forests, designated to preserve watershed and ecosystem functions; 6% is in protected areas (parks and nature preserves); and 68% is in production forests under varying levels of exploitation, including conversion to other land uses. The island has over 0.7 million ha of "critical land," which represents 3% of Indonesia's total and 9% of the island's area. Most of this critical land (74%) is outside the state forest area and the remaining 0.2 million ha is state forest land. The national land and forest rehabilitation program provides no data on program activities in Maluku (BPS Statistik Indonesia 2002; Ministry of Forestry 2002).

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