Land-Use Types Along the Kemena River–Tubau–Lower Jelalong Region, Sarawak

Abstract

Rapid development in Bintulu has resulted in large-scale changes in land use, especially the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations and industrial tree plantations. Using high-resolution satellite imagery, we analysed land-cover types in the Kemena–Tubau–Lower Jelalong region of Sebauh subdistrict and classified them into nine major land uses. Forest covered most (55.33%) of the 62,133.8 ha project area, followed by swidden agricultural practice (temuda) (21.85%), oil palm plantations (15.92%) and industrial tree plantations (1.35%). The large extent of degraded forest implies that logging has been a main economic activity in this region. Areas planted with oil palm have increased, especially along the roads. These results suggest there will be an increase in the areas covered by oil palm plantations in the future and may surpass the extent of land currently covered by temuda.