SPACEPHOTOS

The Government of Indonesia provides financial incentives for its citizens to emigrate from the main island of Java and establish settlements on many of Indonesia’s 13 000 other islands. This photograph of a vegetal (dark) plume adjacent to the coastline of western Kalimantan Barat Province on Borneo provides a glimpse of how the redistribution of the population is affecting a small section of the west coast of the province. The equatorial town of Pontianak is barely discernible along the banks of the Landak River in the northeast corner of the photograph. The shore current of this part of the South China Sea is carrying southward the plume material of the westward flowing, multichanneled Kapuas River. Sediment streamers intermingle with the darker vegetal plume. Further west is a definite plume boundary with the blue waters of the South China Sea. The light green, deforested coastline is distinguishable from the darker, undisturbed inland patches of dense rain forest.