Beautiful Mount Leuser Park in Aceh a potential tourist spot

Beautiful Mount Leuser Park in Aceh a potential tourist spot

By Syahruddin Hamzah

LEUSER, Aceh (Antara): The forests of Mount Leuser National Park that contain more than 4,000 rare species of flora and fauna are one of the incomparably rich natural beauties in Aceh province.

The very enchanting natural park covering an area of two million hectares goes from sea level in the Kluet area in South Aceh, to 3,000-meter-high mountains.

Its annual rainfall is high, at 2,000 to 3,000 millimeters, and spread evenly over the year, according to Sayed Mudhahar Achmad, deputy chairman of the central International Leuser Foundation.

The foundation is responsible for the preservation of the Leuser National Park ecosystem with the support of European Community funds. It was initiated by Bustanil Arifin, former minister of cooperatives and chief of the National Logistics Agency in the early 1980s.

The area, which stretches for more than 100 kms along the Bukit Barisan mountain range, consists of a number of wildlife reserves: Mount Leuser, Kappi, Kluet, Sekudur, West/South Langkat and the Gurah tourism forest. The park that has an ecosystem of coasts, swamps, lowlands and mountains also has natural caves, hot springs and waterfalls.

Sayed, a former regent of South Aceh, said that ecologists call the Leuser National Park forest one of the three most beautiful ecosystems in the world, after Brazil and Zaire.

The Leuser reserve is home to at least six types of primates: orangutans or mawas (Pongo pygmaeus abelli), gibbons or siamang (Hylobates syndactilus), sarudung (Hylobates las), kera (Macaca fascicularis), macaques or beruk (Macaca nemestrina) and kedih (Prebytis thomasi).

The area is also inhabited by Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrea), the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicororhinus sumatrensis), elephants (Elephas maximus), the honey bear (Helarctos) and a kind of tiger called macan dahan (Nofelis nebulosa) not to mention numerous birds, butterflies and freshwater fish.

Of the 3,000 types of plants in the park there are at least two rare species which are of particular interest to researchers, the Rafflesia arnoldi, the world's biggest flower with a diameter up to more than one meter, and the tallest flower in the world, the Amorphophallus titanun, which can grow to about two meters.

The foundation's concept for managing the park includes conservation and development, safeguarding the ecosystem, preservation, restoration and sustainable use that is able to bring profit to the community living in the vicinity.

The status of the Leuser National Park has been strengthened by Presidential Decree No.33/1998 in an endeavor to maintain its unique ecosystem.

It is needed because there is much damage to the park's forests, especially in Aceh, as a result of forest exploitation by farmers and forest concessionaires, according to the foundation. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of the two million hectares of forest has reportedly been destroyed, resulting in the inhabitants of some neighboring areas finding themselves in a disastrous position.

For example the big flood which hit the regencies of North Aceh and East Aceh a few years go was also related to uncontrolled forest exploitation in upriver areas. The catastrophe that killed more than 20 inhabitants caused losses of over Rp 100 billion (US$11.6 million).

"Disasters resulting from an economic collapse or a nuclear war can possibly be surmounted after a number of generations, but the recovery of genetic biodiversity/species lost as a result of human behavior requires millions of years," Sayed said.

A big building destroyed by war can be restored in two years, but it takes 30 years to regrow trees of one meter in diameter. "That is but a small example of the importance of forest conservation from illegal practices," said Sayed.

He also explained that apart from floods, the inhabitants living around the Leuser National Park also experience other disasters like elephants running amok and tigers looking for prey because the habitat of protected wild game is constantly shrinking.

"I often receive complaints from the inhabitants close to the Leuser corridor on the disturbances of wild game and the floods threatening them every year," he said.

In order to avoid further destruction of the forests in the Leuser National Park, an awareness of the situation is required from all sides. Stern and concrete measures by the security apparatus and the Aceh regional administration are additionally needed.

If necessary, the Aceh regional administration can propose the revocation the permits of forest concession companies which damage the Leuser National Park forest area and invite related agencies to train the inhabitants to safeguard the environment.

"We wish that the biodiversity, the flora and fauna of the Leuser National Park will be managed in such a way as to become a tourism attraction that will improve the income and welfare of the people," Sayed said.