The use of Remote Sensing and GIS to Support Sustainable Management of Tropical Forest in East Kalimantan, Indonesia Delineation of areas of damage Two Landsat TM images acquired in 1996 and 2000 were used in damage assessment, by which areas of encroachment around the river-protected area were delineated in each image using visual interpretation. An example of such delineated area from Landsat TM 2000 using the 542-color composite is shown in Figure 2, 3 and 4. These areas were later polygonized and then rasterized. The encroached areas were derived from summing up the areas of all the pixels. The resulting sizes of encroached areas (within the protected area) for the years 1996 and 2000 are shown in Table 2. The proportion of protected area encroached in each of the years 1996 and 2000, was computed by expressing each of the encroached areas in hectares for 1996 and 2000, as a percentage of the total protected area given in Table 2.
 Figure 2 An example of digitised encroachment area around the river (In the year 2000)  Figure 3 Map showing encroachment areas around the river-protected area in Labanan concession in the year 1996  Figure 4 Map showing encroachment areas around the river-protected areas in Labanan concession in the year 2000 According to the intensity scale rating associated with indicator E 1.3 i.e. “the intensity of damage in the protected areas which includes the danger of forest fires”, the ranking for this particular indicator, with regard to encroachment within the river-protected area, is “GOOD”. This is because as specified in the scale, the area size of the damaged protected area is small (<25%) and there is a low degree of damage. Alternatively it could be stated that; the damaged protected area is very small (<10%); there is a moderate degree of damage and control efforts are adequate. The relationship between spectral reflectance and biodiversity An attempted was done to find out whether a relationship existed between reflectance values of Landsat TM and tree diversity indices, with the hope that if this yielded a considerable relationship, then it would provide a basis for tree diversity estimation, which would consequently reduce the costs usually encountered in carrying out field surveys. However, no observed relationship was found in this respect. With regard to rating on the intensity scale of indicators for Sustainable Natural Production Forest Management, the overall rating for tree species diversity was rated “POOR”, whereas that of intensity of damage within the river-protected area was “GOOD”. Using the similarity index, the overall rating was “FAIR”. Comparatively, the assessors assessed the forest both in terms of species diversity as well as intensity of damage within the protected area as “FAIR”. Conclusion The study concluded that remote sensing can be used to support some of the ecological criteria and indicators to assess sustainable tropical forest management.
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