Gunung Leuser National Park and its biodiversity!
Gunung Leuser National Park
The area of rainforest where you will go trekking is in the Gunung Leuser National Park (1,094,692 ha) and forms less than half of the Leuser Ecosystem (LE) which is in total 2.6 million hectares of tropical rainforest located in northern Sumatra and Aceh. It is the largest area of rainforest left in Sumatra. Thus only half is protected by law! In 2004 GLNP, as part of the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (TRHS), was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and in 2011 it was placed on a list of world heritage sites in danger. In 2013 GLNP and the TRHS was declared as being of 'outstanding universal value' (UNESCO) and one of the '..worlds most irreplaceable protected areas for conservation and biodiversity' (IUCN, UNEP). However, also in 2013 the Aceh government announced a spatial plan which may result in 1000s of hectares of forest being reclassified and thus opened up for logging, palm oil and mining concessions.
For further information on the situation and GLNP in general see the following links:
Article on Mongabay website: "Local NGOs: Ecosystem services, not orangutans, key to saving Leuser."
Why is Sumatra and its environment so special?
Biodiversity (biological diversity) means the variety of living things (plants, animals, micro-organisms) in a particular habitat or in the world as a whole. Approx 1.75 million species have been identified (mostly insects). Scientists estimate there are more than 13 million species in the world. Many species of plant and animal are at risk of extinction (e.g. orangutan, tiger, rhino) but it is the degradation and loss of whole ecosystems (coral reefs, forests) that is the biggest threat to biodiversity. Indonesia has extremely high levels of biodiversity but Sumatra has the highest levels of biodiversity under threat.
45% of the 10,000 plant species recorded in West Indo-Malayan region, are found in the Leuser Ecosystem.
Sumatra has the most mammals (210 species) of any Indonesian island. Sixteen species of mammal are endemic (not found anywhere else in the wild) to Sumatra, and another 17 are endemic to the adjacent Mentawai Islands. Sumatra’s endemic primate diversity per unit area is unmatched anywhere on Earth.
Sumatra’s bird list numbers 582 species. According to BirdLife International, there are 34 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) on Sumatra, of which 54% are outside protected areas and 18% are in critically threatened lowland forests.
300 Sumatran reptile and amphibian species, 69 (23%) are endemic. Sumatra’s freshwater systems hold 270 species, of which 42 (15%) are endemic.
Bukit Lawang....more than just orangutan!
A lot of orangutan tourism in Bukit Lawang is unsustainable and has a negative impact on the orangutans. In the wild orangutans spend 90% of their time high in the forest canopy but in Bukit Lawang they are always on the ground or very low in small trees and close to humans.
This is not normal behaviour.
Research has shown that it can make them and their offspring/infants ill and the orangutan infant mortality rate in BL is high. In order to take a bit of pressure off the orangutans and busy Bukit Lawang trails we created a conservation project to catalogue and promote awareness of the incredible biodiversity and thus #bukitlawang #morethanorangutan was born.
We started by taking photos of any bit of wildlife that we saw, trying to identify the species and posting photos on social media. By keeping a record of the ‘species richness’ we were able to register our project with the UN decade of biodiversity programme which ran from 2010-2020 and we recorded over 300 different species! We are now in the process of uploading our photos to iNaturalist, an amazing social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. please head over there and have a look at some super cool wildlife. You can click on the link or go to the website www.inaturalist.org and find us at greenhillsumatra.
We would love to try and make Bukit Lawang and GLNP the ‘go-to’ destination for where visitors come because they know there is amazing wildlife here… A bit like going to the Great Barrier Reef for the world's best scuba diving. If we (Green Hill, all guesthouse, guides, visitors etc )want to ensure that Bukit Lawang has a long term future, continue to protect the forest its wildlife and make sure its there for future generations we need to start to celebrate and promote the amazing variety of biodiversity here...not just focus on orangutans. We hope this will promote a more sustainable form of nature based tourism and support a long term future for the human communitys in and around the Bukit Lawang area of Gunung Leuser National Park alongside conserving the rainforest and ALL its inhabitants.
Bukit Lawang means "gateway to hills"....join us in promoting it as gateway to access the amazing biodiversity..
...tell all your friends, family and fellow travellers about Green Hill and share/like our Instagram page.
