Natural Resources: Fauna, Flora and Mineral Deposits

b. Flora

• Flora is indeed typically tropical comprising by a vast tropical forest in all the islands, covering either lowlands or mountaneous higlands. The very potensial islands are Sumatera, Kalimantan and Irian Jaya / Papua. Coconut trees are growing along the beaches of the archipelagos !


• There are different kind of fruits, the most popular are many sort of oranges, bananas, avocados, rambutans, papayas, durians, mangoes, manggistan, pine apples, watermelons and still many others. Imported apples, grapes and melons are succesful to be planted on the highlands


• There are many species of plants for vegetables and medical purposes which very important to produce traditional herbal medicines.


• Many species of horticultures/beautiful flowers are easy growth especially on the highland areas. The most popular are roses, melatis, sedap malam and many species of orchids, the black one is found in Irian Jaya which is the most famous.

c. Mineral Deposits.

• Due to crustal plates collision, beside mountain building i.e.folding and faulting, the magma underneath moving up to the higher position. Because of cooling, part of it solidified as igneous rocks and the remaining more diluted solution containing rich metallic compounds following the so called hydrothermal process and deposited later on. Some of the magma extruded the surface, we call it lava flow, forming volcanoes. The ancient volcanic remnants are usually rich of metallic deposits.


• The effect of Eurasia-Australia c.p.c, along the northern part ot the resisitant line we have nowadays a metallogenic belt streching along the western side of Sumatera island, along southern side of Java, along southern side of South Eastern Islands till NE Timor Islands then curved up to the North passing the Philippines ended in Sabah, Malaysian North Kalimantan. Valuable minerals are gold and silver ores combined with lead-zink-copper sulfides, manganese oxide ores founded as primary, secondary/elluvial and alluvial ores. Alluvial gold was practically discovered in all river streams of Kalimantan. Latheritic Nikkel deposit in Sulawesi. Three potential deposits have being mined out by Inco and Antam. Antam has Ferro Nikkel Plant in Sulawesi supplied also by Gebe Island one of Mollucas islands. A potential copper mine is now producing by Newmont on the Island of Sumbawa NTT with targeted capacity of 120.000 metric tons per day.


• The effect of Pacific/Caroline-Australia c.p.c. other metallogenic belt was on the back of whole Papua New Guinea island, either belongs to INA or New Gunea concentrated along the northern side, the ores which currently have being mined out are mainly copper and gold by Freeport Indonesia (open pit Ertzberg and underground East Ertzberg) and by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (openpit Grasberg and underground). Grasberg is now the second largest gold mine in the world, with 250.000 metric tons per day capacity and about 25-30 metric tons gold annually.


• Another metallogenic belt has been discovered beginning from the cape of Malaysia (NE direction) to Singkep-Belitung-Bangka islands, the origin might be as the effect of c.p.c.of India and Eurasia (?), containing potential tin alluvial deposit. This belt splitted to the direction of Natuna-West Kalimantan which containing bauxite ores.
  Bangka-Belitung-Singkep are the most popular tin mines, Kijang and its surrounding island are bauxite mines.


• After the building of geosynclines within which huge remainders of ancient plants were deposited, the process of coal and oil deposits formation have been occured in a long geological time. Folding and faulting were many times happened due to tectonic of the earth crust. Oil deposit because of its lighter specific mass density has been deposited in the upper part of anticlines and faults or on the top of wedge out layers. Usually in sandy formation which deposited locked between solid layers (clayey or lime ).
  Indonesia which lying on 'ring of fire' and unstable due to collision of crustal plates since earlier geologic time has good probability to have more potensial fossil fuel formation in the future, if big investments are available !

d. Tourisms

As stated above, crustal plates collisions (c.p.c) affected folding and faulting on the earth surface in the form of mountain buildings. Magmatic movement underneath sometimes extruded the surface forming volcanic activities, the product of which fertilizing the soils whereon different kinds of tropical plants are growing in valleys and hilly grounds. The colors are green or blue viewed from far distants, making good and beautiful landscapes. Especially in highland areas with beautifull tea and rubber plantations panorama e.g. Puncak between Jakarta and Bandung. Lembang, Ciater and Subang in the northern part of Bandung. In Mid and East Java still many beautifull places are good to be visited such as Wonosobo, Temanggung, Tengger, Bromo and others.

Recent volcanic activities or remnants of those as craters or calderas could be seen in many places, the most popular are Lake Toba in North Sumatera ( caldera, a remnant of volcanic explotion about 7000 ? years ago), a still active Mt.Merapi in West Sumatera, remnant of 1883 big catastrophal explotion of Mt.Krakatau located in Straight Sunda (Sumatera and Java) which destroyed and dissapeared twothird of the island. The affected 40 meter tsunami caused 40 000 victims in the west coast area of Banten that time. Anak (child of) Krakatau is recently still very active !
Mt Tangkuban Parahu near Lembang about 20 kilometers North of Bandung has a beautiful active craters, Mt Merapi Yogyakarta, Mt Bromo and others are beautiful panorama for tourisms in Java. They are still many beautiful mountains and craters panorama outside Java and Sumatera islands but because lack of infra stuctures and facilities they are still hidden to tourists and visitors.

The coastal conditions along the southern part of Sumatera (most famous Bengkulu), West Java (Pelabuhan Ratu and Pangandaran), Bali (Kuta), Lombok (Senggigi) and others are good for surfing. Bunaken coast of Manado (North Sulawesi), mostly all coasts of Maluku Islands to the east till Irian Jaya are places very good for diving to see beautiful panorama beneath sea level. Sea water in these areas is so clean and clear so that we can see many beautiful different species of fishes and reefs underneath.

Those are tourism objects related purely with 'natural resources', thank to God due to 'collision of crustal plates' as explained above. Other interrested tourism objects are that related to cultural behaviour of our ancestors as highly civilized people in the past. Please read the followings.

e. Population

Nowadays, population of Indonesia totaled 230 million people the fifth biggest in the world. The religion is 90 % Islam or Muslim, others 10 % are non moslems Catholics, Christians, Budhas, Hindus, Confucious and other trusts and believes.

Consisting of many ethnics with different but less than 600 languages, because separated by so many islands, by seas. On lands by big rivers, big jungles with valleys, mountains and hills. Those indeed have each customs and habits, but prominently with good and nice cultures.

According to a scientific (?) legend the first human invaded and stayed in this archipelagoes were Africans 30-40,000 years or even more to 60,000 years ago. They used the benefit of low sea level in the ice age that time. Not many were known about them, but surely they came in groups more than one migration periods.

The ancestor of most recent Indonesian had left China mainland about 5 -7 000 years ago reached an island that called nowadays as Taiwan. Anthropologists named these groups as Austronesians. At the same time when the people in Mid East discovered wheel, the Austronesians discovered sail and outriggers for their canoes so they could acrossed the seas more further. Small groups during hundred of years made continuous migrations through South China Sea to the islands presently called as the Philippines and Indonesia. The Autronesians had introduced technonology of making ceramics, irrigation system in rice plant fields and methods of livestock. They had spreaded out to the whole areas of this archipelago about 3,000 till 500 BC. But controversially no any remainders of that old periods had been found !

At the time of Jesus birth the Indian cultures had begun to be embraced in the west part of the archipelagoes. Oldest inscriptions of 400 and 450 AD in East Kalimantan and West Java were just found explaining the existence of Hinduism Kingdom of Kutai and Tarumanegara. Since then Hinduist and Budhist Priests gave local leaders a supernatural power of how to govern. Kings had been developed and became Emperors, proved by the empire of Budhism Sriwijaya ( year 700) in recent Palembang, South Sumatera, and the empire of Hinduism Mataram at about the same time in Mid Java. At the time of emperors Syailendra in that Hinduism Mataram the temples of Borobudur, Kalasan, Mendut, Prambanan, Sewu and others had been built which very famous till now. The most famous world wide are Borobudur (included to 7 world miracles) and Kalasan (destroyed by Desember 2007 earthquack but already rehabilated again).

Other famous emperors were then Kediri and Singosari which raised up and falled down each other interchangeably by never ended conflict between them. But Kediri in the time of powerful King Kartanegara, had been succesfully conquered Sriwijaya, which was also under attacked by King Calamandala from India. The reason was taking control of Custom and Duty at Strait Malacca by Sriwijaya that time considered to be very disturbing the traffic of their commercial activities.

The conflict between Singosari and Kediri had been continued till the year of 1525 AD duringwhich Majapahit originally built by a man named Wijaya a relative of Singosari. This Majapahit had been developed to be a famous empire to reign the whole archipelagoes of Nusantara included Malacca during King Hayam Wuruk with Prime Minister of Gajah Mada.

Beyond that coming the people from the Mid East who beside bartering and trading merchanderies, they did 'syiar Islam' the youngest religion which based on the trustee to 'One God As All The Mighty (Tauchid)', which attractive to most of local people.

The Mid East people for the same purposes not only went to the east direction of their country founding our archipelagoes, but also to the west direction till the country of Spain ! The merchandizes now included hot spices from us, which were very needed by the western people for warming their bodily life against cold weather. The western people mainly British, Poteguize and Spanish famous as brave sailors wanted to discover the sources of needed hot spices , by themselves. They went either to the east direction along the coast of Africa Continent, or to the west direction acrossed the Atlantic Ocean.

They discovered New Continent called America, the Mollucan Islands as the source of hot spices and last but not least the understanding that the globe was a big 'rounded planet' not flat as thought as before ! This succesfull voyages were joined by other western people Dutch, German etc.

The coming of western people with their imperialistic behaviour of them ever since. 'Colonies' then to be created to the discovered lands and islands included their local inhabitants. Assisted and supported by local feodalistic kings or sultans, our archipelagoes 'Nusantara' should then under Dutch colonialism and called as 'East Netherland Indies'. This started beyond the collaps of VOC (Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnies, associated east indies companies usually called 'kumpeni' by local people ), till the beginning of World War II 1n 1942 and then continued under the Japs occupation 1942 - 1945.

During Dutch colonialism the life of most local people called popularly that time as 'inlanders' (inhabitants), had been depressed as in slavery condition. Most of them became very poor and psychologically influenced by heavy inferiority complex. However Thanks to The Mighty God, due to suh condition a strong solidarity among them had been arosen proven by daily mutual cooperation in case of building their houses, in case of planting padi and other cultivation works, sharing foods to neighbors who need and visiting each other in case of somebody ill or sicks, etc. In every village the owners of the houses along the road usually serving drink water for the thursty dwellers and lamplights if the day becoming dark.

In 18th century the Dutch colonial government compulsary applied the so called 'ethic politics' the most important of it was education for the people by opening primary, secondary (junior and high schools) till lately universities. Though in practised only for rich capable people like aristocrats or mid to high level socities, the 'inlanders' were still not able to get education most of them still illiterate and uneducated at all. And also, originally the colonial governmet agreed the above mentioned ethic politics just to get better human resources for supporting their developed and advancing more profit colonial biznissis.

But since then the native intelectuals, either educated domestic or abroad could stimulize the people national consciousness that they were under the Dutch Colonial depression, and they had to move to reach the freedom. The movement was supported by certain concsious people, by entering different political organizations or parties.

This movement continued till the beginning of World War II in 1942 when the Netherland East Indies Government easily and completely surrendered without any prerequisits to the Japs. During the Japanese occupation, the Indonesian people got intensive military training especially how to be discipline and how to be brave against the enemies, with 'jibaku' or self murder if necessary. The vested interest of the Japs to give military training to the people in order to get support in case of the coming Allies Forces counter attacts. Whilst Indonesian Leaders considered military traning as preparation for phisical revolution and defending independence. Sukarno determined the momentum of this, was the time after World War II ended in the state of governmental vacume.This was realized on August 17th, 1945 just 2 days after US atomic bombs exploaded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japs completely surrendered. Sukarno-Hatta announced the Indonesia Freedom Proclamation. The Allied Forces could not to come to Indonesia directly, this time was good to vanish and seizuring the Japs weapons and amunition !

Fauna and Flora are typically tropical : a.Fauna Fauna on the island of Sumatera is the most complete. There are mamals such as 'orang utans' and different kind of monkeys, elephants, tigers, single horn rhinoceros, bears and other small size mamals like some species of squirrels . The most popular reptiles are crocodiles and the smaller size species called bayawaks and many different species of snakes. Many species of beautiful birds and butterflies are easy to find anywhere on plants and trees. On the island of Java the same fauna as on Sumatera are found except no elephant and orang utan. The amount is relatively scarce because the population is here the most crawded one. Kalimantan is famous of its orang utans and bears but here no tigers, no elephants, no rhinoceros and even no horses at all. Because of many rivers there are many species of freshwater fishes, the famous one is Arwana with beautiful shape and very nice gold and silvery colors, maximun size about 40 centimetres. Sulawesi/Celebes is famous of its 'anoas' (wild buffaloes). Tigers, elephants, orang utans, rhinoceros and other big animals are absent. In Tana Toraja families who owned certain male buffaloes with good shape of horns are considered to be as rich and very respected by the people. On the eastern part of the archipelago like Mollucas Islands and Souheastern Islands, big mamals are absent except wild horses on Sumba and Sumbawa islands (famous milk for medical purposes). These islands are also famous of beef cattles as sources of meat for other western islands especially big cities like Surabaya, Semarang, Jakarta, Bandung etc. Also famous worldwide the Komodo reptile on the island of Komodo. On Irian Jaya/Papua are famous kanggaroo(typical Australian fauna), ostrich and nice cassowary. All big animals are absent.

Geography & Geology

Conspiration among British, Dutch, Spanish and Portugese, in the beginning of the 16th age, has been committed to devide their colonial occupations into regions based on similar ethnic origin. Such as Malaynese occupying Malacca, Singapore and Northen Borneo for British; Tagalog in the Philippins for Spanish, East Timor for Portugese and Netherland East Indies for Dutch. Each of their population have been agreed that those boundary commitment could be considered as 'nation in status nascendi' for the future.

Netherland East Indies which later on called Indonesia, the name was firstly introduced by George Windsor Earl, a British Navy Officer ( Singapore) in 1850 consisting of :

• Greater Sunda* Islands nl. Sumatera, Java, Borneo/Kalimantan (excluded Sabah, Serawak and Brunai in the North), Celebes/Sulawesi each with all the small surrounded islands



• Lesser Sunda* Islands nl Bali, Lombok, Sumba, Sumbawa, Flores, West Timor each with the small surrounded islands



• Mollucas Islands and the small surrounded islands



• West New Guinea/West Irian/Papua and the small surrounded islands

*The term 'Greater and Lesser Sunda' ( Sunda an ethnic occupying West Java) is no more used after 1945. Only ' Straits Sunda' is still used till now !

The total islands included were 13,667, that time 56 %(7,653 islands) without any names yet and only 7% (957 islands) were populated.

Those were occupying area between 6 degrees N and11 degrees S; between 95 degrees E and 141 degrees E. Consisting 1,9 million Sq.Km of land and 7,9 Sq Km of seas. Since Sea Areas is 4x Land Areas, the Netherland East Indies is called a Maritiem Region. Lying between 2 continents Asia in the NW, and Australia in the SE. And between Pacific Ocean in the North and Indonesian Ocean in the South.

Currently neighboring closely with Malaysia (NW-Norh), the Philippines (N), East Papua New Guinea(E) and Australia(SE) and also with Democratic Republic of Timor Leste.

Because of its beauty, the Netherland East Indies that time was also called by tourists/visitors : 'the Equatorial Emerald Strings' of the eastern hemisphere !

Tropical climates comprising anually dry season, 6 months in the months of March-August; and rainy season, in the months of September-February. The weather in both seasons is normally mild, the temperature ranges between 22 and 35 degrees C elcius with usually high humidity. A permanent snow is only found on the Cartenz/Jayawijaya's peak in Irian Jaya/Papua at the attitude of 15.000 feet above sea level.

Geologically, Indonesia except Irian Jaya and the surrounding islands, consisting of younger rock formations nl Tertiary and Quarternary of age. Weathering, erosion and denudation, is still occuring causing most rivers have trouble water/brown colored containing different particle sizes from mud till sandy particles.

According to plate tectonics, Indonesia is lying on the collision areas of three (3) crustle plates Eurasia, Pacific and Australia. The movement of those, though very slow in the magnitude of 2 to 5 centimeter per year, affecting tectonics such as folding and faulting or mountain buildings and colcanic activities, also intensive earthquackes sometimes followed by catastrophal tsunami phenomena. Thats why Indonesia is said to be on the ring of fire.

If we look on the map of Indonesia, the Nusa Tenggara Timur/East SE islands had been beautifully bended or curved up due to the Eurasia crustal plate's force coming from the NW direction was heavily resisted by the massive Australian plate and West Irian/Papua lying on the SE and E. Such massive resistant could be traced beginning from the west coast of Aceh-Sumatera, South Coast of Java, South Coast Nusatenggara Barat/West SE islands. Along the northen side of this resintant line, the affecting magmatic movement beneath could reach the crust in many places, forming volcanic belt on the islands stated above.

On the other hands, thanks to God, the collision of crustal plates followed by the phenomena of folding and faulting in the process of mountain bulding, resulting the formation of geosynclines inwhich later on filled up by valuable fossil deposits such as coal; and anticlines, faulted area and wedged out layers of capable rocks for depositing raw oil and gas. The magmatic movement and the ancient volcanic activities along the resistant line, resulted the formation of metalogenic belts containing important and valuable metals and minerals, either primary or secondary deposits.

Last but not least, volcanic activities producing lavas and dust containing sulfur, potassium, sodium and other elements, very useful to make the ground soil becoming more fertile for cultivation purposes and with beautiful green panorama of peneplain and blue mountaineous landscapes.
By those reasons Indonesia becoming a beautiful and a rich country. Open and available for the building of tourism industry, fishery industry, agricultural industry and agrobisiness, wood industry, mining & mineral industry and oil & gas industry. Those, however, need a solid investment capital and hightechnology and should be handled and managed by honest professional, skillful and hardwork/energitic human resources.

Introduction

By this blog herewith I'll introduce to the world about a country named INDONESIA or shortly called INA as a vast equatorial archipelagous in the far east hemisfere of the globe. Because to my experience when I say Indonesia as my country, most people abroad then asking : How far from Bali, the island of Paradise?
So they knew better the island of Bali than Indonesia as a whole !

By that reason then, I will try to tell you all about the whole country of Indonesia : geographic and gelogy, natural resources, the people or the nation, government and politics etc.

So would you please to visit this blog and read the always up to date postings on it.

OK then, I hope everybody Cheerio !!!