Licuala bellatula

One recorded locality for this species is Jat (Yat), very close to the Papua New Guinea-Indonesia border, and about 3 km north of the 215,000 Ha 'PT Tunas Timber Lestari' logging concession (Global Forest Watch 2023). Satellite imagery shows numerous small logging roads and forest degradation rather than clear-felling. The exact site of collection is unknown, but there are large areas of forest impacted in the region. In Papua New Guinea, the area around Kiunga also shows some forest loss due to the expansion of the city, particularly along the roads, but large areas of intact forest remain. The Wondiwoi mountains are a large area of intact forest with few obvious threats. The species was last recorded from the upper Lorentz river in 1907 (due to a lack of botanical surveying in the area), but the site appears from current satellite imagery to be a small settlement surrounded by forest. All sites are located in areas with extensive intact habitat available, such that any overall decline in quality of habitat is likely to be negligible, and unlikely to have a significant impact on the extinction risk of the species.

Although the precise site at which Licuala bellatula was recorded is not known precisely, the Wondiwoi mountains record is most likely within a protected area. The Pegunungan Wondiboy Nature Reserve is a national-level protected area covering 795 km² and is managed by Balai Besar Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam Papua Barat. The other recorded sites for this species are outside protected areas. The species is not found in any ex situ collections (BGCI 2022).