Tropical Rain Forest Heritage Of Sumatra

Rochelle Dugan 3/19/09 Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra The Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra is home to a plethora of flora and fauna and protects three widely separated national parks along the Bukit Barisan mountain range in West Sumatra. This enormous amount of land has its own set of variety in its layout and its inhabitants who survived the heat for centuries. The three national parks in the Tropical Rainforest Heritage are Gunung Leuser National Park, Kerinci Sablat National Park, and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. All three of these have unique qualities. Sumatra is the 3rd largest island of Indonesia and holds one of the biggest rainforest reserves. The total area covered by the national parks is 2.5 million hectares with an altitude ranging from sea level to 3,805 meters high. The Bukit Barisan is a mountain range that rose around the same time as the Himalayas, which was 70 million years ago. The Bukit Barisan mountains are 1,650 km long and run along the western side of the island peaking with active volcanoes. The first national park, Gunung Leuser National Park, was established in 1980. This park is located in the northern end and is 150km long and over 100km wide. This park is very mountainous and most of them are extremely steep. 40% of the park, mostly in the north, is over 1,500 m high, and 12%, in the lower half, is below 600m. In the Bukit Barisan park there are eleven peaks that are over 2,700m, the highest is Gunung Kerinci, which is in the next park. The second park, which is in the center of the heritage, is the Kerinci Sablat National Park. This park was established in 1921. Differing from the Bukit Barisan park, the Kerinci Sablat National Park runs 350km along the Bukit Barisan mountain range, yet only around 45 km wide and 2,000 m above sea level. An astonishing ¾ of the

park is steep slope of mountains. The highest point is Gunung Kerinci standing at 3,805 m tall, which is also the tallest active volcano in Indonesia. The third and final park in the heritage is the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Same as the Kerinci Sablat National Park, this one stretches 350 km long and 45 km wide. The northern 2/3 is mountains average out to be 1,500 m high. The highest point in this park is Gunung Palung at 1,964 m tall. The southern part of this park is lower, around 90km of it is a peninsula and borders the sea for half its length. Many of Sumatra’s rivers, streams, lakes and hot springs start from this park which is a necessity for such an abundant jungle. The flora and fauna have a luscious home in Sumatra’s Tropical Rainforest Heritage due to the 9 months of rainfall in the wet areas and 7 months in the dry ones. This abundance creates a perfect home to a very diverse population. These parks all together contain 10,000 species of plants, 180 species of mammals, and 450 species of birds. 201 of these are Asian species, 12 of which are confined to Sumatra. Some of the main animals in these parks are: Sumatran Tiger, Sumatran Rhino, Orangutan, Sumatran Elephant, Malayan Sun-bear, and the Sumatran Grizzled Langur. Some of the main birds are: Sumatran Ground Cuckoo, Rueck’s Blue Flycatcher, Storm’s Stork, and the Whitewinged duck. The threats of these parks include illegal logging and hunting and clearing, mainly for coffee production. There are many efforts to try and conserve these parks as much as possible but there is only so much that can be done. With more helpers, we can try and conserve as much as possible and help the wildlife of these beautiful parks.

References: http://www.wcs.org/globalconservation/Asia/Indonesia/trhs

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Tropical_Rainforest_Heritage_of_Sumatra,_Indonesia