Bukit Duabelas National Park: A Harmony of Nature and Tradition

Among the ranks of national parks in Indonesia, Bukit Duabelas National Park holds a special position. This area was not established solely to protect forests and wildlife, but also to ensure the continuity of the living space for its original inhabitants, the Orang Rimba or Suku Anak Dalam. For centuries, this indigenous community has made the Bukit Duabelas forest their home, source of livelihood, and centre of cultural identity. As such, Bukit Duabelas is one of the rare examples of a conservation area in Indonesia that combines biodiversity protection with the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights. In many places, the creation of conservation areas has given rise to contradictions. Forests are saved, but the communities that have long lived within them are marginalised in the name of nature protection. The story of Bukit Duabelas offers a different lesson. The idea of protecting this area initially arose from concerns over the loss of the Orang Rimba’s living space due to increasingly massive logging and land clearing during the 1980s. In other words, conservation in Bukit Duabelas was born not only to save trees and wildlife, but also to safeguard people and their culture. The Orang Rimba are one of the last indigenous communities in Sumatra that still maintain a very strong spiritual and ecological relationship with the forest. For them, the forest is not merely a landscape that produces timber, damar resin, rattan, or fruit. The forest is a living space full of meaning, a place where ancestors dwell, a source of knowledge, and a school of life for the next generation. Therefore, when the forest is damaged, what is lost is not only the trees, but also language, traditions, and cultural identity. Amidst the increasingly powerful currents of modernisation, the existence of the Orang Rimba serves as a reminder that there are other ways of viewing nature. They do not separate humans from the environment. Nature is understood as a part of life that must be respected and protected. Values such as taking only what is sufficient, respecting certain trees, maintaining forbidden zones, and limiting the exploitation of forest products are conservation practices that were in place long before the term sustainable development became known to the world. One of the most interesting forms of local wisdom is the existence of ‘Tali Bukit’, forest areas designated by the Orang Rimba as forbidden zones where clearing and logging are prohibited. Tali Bukit not only functions as a spatial boundary but also serves as a traditional mechanism for protecting water sources, wildlife habitats, and ecosystem balance. In modern language, this practice is essentially a highly advanced form of community-based landscape management.