“…Twenty-one land cover categories were identified: (1) 6 classes of the natural forest included primary dryland forest, secondary dryland forest, primary mangrove forest, primary swamp forest, secondary mangroves forest, secondary swamp forest; (2) 15 classes of non-forest consisting of swamp shrub, swamp, bush/shrub, estate crop plantation, settlement area, barren land, clouds, grassland, water body, dryland agriculture, shrub-mixed dryland, paddy field, fishpond, airport, transmigration area (Figure 3). By using supervised classification [1] of remotely sensed imagery, it is possible to get the resultant area estimates that occurred in this Regency, as shown by Tables 3-5. In 1990, Merauke Regency was covered by the natural forest of around 2,440,396 ha, or approximately 50.3% (Figure 4), compared to the non-forest area of about 2,411,319 ha, or 49.70% of total area (Table 3).…”