Boesenbergia belalongensis

Over half of the lowland forest in Borneo has been converted or degraded due to human activities such as commercial and illegal logging, large-scale agriculture for oil palm, mining, dam construction, shifting cultivation and infrastructure development. Large fires have burnt several other remaining tracts. Many of Borneo's mountain forests have remained largely intact due to their isolation and the rugged landscape, but mining operations, large dams, high-altitude timber operations, and road building are all increasing threats to this ecoregion's biodiversity (Loucks 2001). However, the forest reserve of Bukit Belalong has continuous primary rainforest from its base to its summit (Pendry and Proctor 1997). Human impact on the forest is apparently slight and limited to hunting and gathering of forest products by local Iban People. The summit of Bukit Belalong has been cleared to allow helicopters to land and the clearing was extended to about 50 m x 50 m in January 1992 (Poulsen 1996). Deforestation in the Kinabalu area has slowed down considerably in the last decade. The park is proving to be effective in protecting the tropical forest against clearing. However, deforestation rates in the buffer zone have remained unchanged (Phua et al. 2008). Some species of Boesenbergia are used as spices and folk medicine and some have been found to have valuable medicinal properties, however, there is no recorded ethnobotanical use of this species. Gingers have enjoyed popularity as ornamental plants in Asia and the Far East for centuries. Ornamental gingers have rapidly increased in popularity in the western world in the past few years (West Demmy and Burch 1998), which has promoted an increase in illegal collecting. This is an attractive plant, with the central yellow-green leaves (Poulsen 1993), although it is not known whether extraction threatens the population of this species. Severe droughts have recently been affecting ecosystems in the region, however, the impact on this species is unknown.

This species was collected within the Batu Apoi Forest Reserve, which covers 450 km² of the Temburong district of Brunei and from within the Mount Kinabalu National Park, a World Heritage site in Sabah, which covers 754 km². Habitats within these conservation units seem to have remained intact. Zingibericeae have often not been well explored in the field as collections were avoided by conventional workers due to the large herbaceous size, having fleshy rhizomes which pose a problem in the preparation of herbarium specimens. Additionally their occurrence as undergrowth in inaccessible forest areas can make collection difficult and the often short period of flowering hinders collection of materials with adequate character details (Prakash and Mehrotra 1996). Until recently, the region was largely botanically unexplored and under-collected and large tracts of montane rain forests still remain to be explored, it seems likely that many species may be incompletely mapped. Surveys should be conducted in historical sites of collection and potentially suitable areas to determine the current range and size of the population. The ecology and biology of the taxon should be studied and population viability analysis conducted. Seeds should be collected for germplasm conservation and cultivation as part of ex situ conservation measures. Collection of the taxon should otherwise be prohibited.