National park to be expanded

Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor

The Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park management will expand the park, which lies in parts of Bogor, Sukabumi and Cianjur regencies, due to its value as a water conservation area and a transit area for rare birds of prey that fly in and out of the park.

Head of the Bogor conservation unit Memen Suparman told The Jakarta Post recently that the Ministry of Forestry had evaluated the forest's function and decided to expand the park from 15,196 hectares to 21,975 hectares. The expansion plan was legalized by a ministerial decree.

Land clearance inside the conservation area has reached 100 hectares and will therefore require some major rehabilitation, Memen added.

"The main problem is that we must do some major rehabilitation to improve the condition of the soil. We will need thousands of trees for the reforestation and we call on the government to help in providing them," he said.

An employee at the national park's Bodogol sector, Ujang Edi, said he was hoping that the forestry ministry would assist with reforestation.

"This national park is a treasure for everybody in the country. At present, we are buying the seedlings and trees with our own monthly salary, which is very small. Due to our idealism, some of us on staff have even raised funds from the public," he stated.

Ujang has been one of the most tireless fund raisers for the rehabilitation program. He managed to get 4,000 trees donated by elementary students last March, and those have been planted in the national park's Cibeling sector located in Caringin district, Bogor regency.

The national park management has another problem with the Forest Police patrol because of the expansion plan. At present, the park police are understaffed with only 30 officers for all four sectors -- Bodogol, Cisarua, Cimande and Bojong Murni -- and the number of patrol vehicles is very limited.

When the Post was invited on a patrol with them in the Cisarua sector, an area that used to be an industrial forest managed by state-run forestry company Perhutani, the damage was very evident.

The worst conditions are located in the Balekambang block in Citeko village, Cisarua district, and the Lemah Nended block in Sukagalih village, Megamendung district, both in Bogor regency.