Samenvatting

Tropical forest in Tabalong district South Kalimantan are under threat by external factors; one of the main threats to the forests are coal mining operations. Coal mining operations are temporary land use activities because of this mine rehabilitation is an important part of the mine development process.Mine rehabilitation is designed to restore the landscape to a state where the natural processes such as water balance, soil and ecological processes have been restarted. The restoration of these natural processes is necessary for the development and natural regeneration of a new ecosystem. To help the restoration of the natural processes its necessary to have an understanding of what happens after the rehabilitation process has been started. The focus of this report is to find out how coal mine Rehabilitation on the Tutupan site in the Tabalong district is affected by the following factors; tree species, soil type and year of Rehabilitation. The study site for this research is located on the In Pit Backfill area on the Tutupan site. The following methods were used to help understand how tree species, soil type and year of rehabilitation influence the success of mine rehabilitation; A forest inventory and soil analysis of the top 30 cm of the soil. The investigated rehabilitation areas have a low amount of available macronutrients, especially N, P and organic carbon. The investigated rehabilitation areas also have a low soil pH and a high potential soil acidity which can cause toxicity for plants. Due to the low soil fertility and acidic nature of the ex-mining site, the tree species used for mine rehabilitation are usually pioneer species. On the In Pit Backfill, 21 tree species were used to rehabilitated the area. The most commonly used species were Acacia auriculiformis , Paraserianthes falcataria , Cassia siamea , Sesbania grandiflora and Leucaena glauca. However, the dominant species encountered during the forest inventory were Enterolobium cyclocarpum, Acacia auriculiformis, Mallotus paniculatus, Leucaena glauca and Cassia siamea. In conclusion, not all of the planted tree species were encountered during the inventory conducted in 2016. From the encountered tree species the following species are the most successful on the In Pit Backfill area; Enterolobium cyclocarpum, Acacia auriculiformis, Mallotus paniculatus, Leucaena glauca and Cassia siamea. The soil conditions and year of planting were taken into account in the determination which species were the most successful.Further research is necessary to increase the success of the rehabilitation activities. Some research topics that could be investigated are; How to increase the decomposition rate of the organic waste and how to optimise the soil conditions for the microorganisms. It could also be interesting to see what the effect of soil compaction has on the growth and survival rate of the seedlings.