Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park

Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park is home to three of the world’s most charismatic and endangered large species: the Sumatran rhino, elephant and tiger.  The park is one of the most important forest areas for tiger conservation in Southeast Asia and is home to perhaps a half of the entire wild populations of Sumatran rhinos and a quarter of wild populations of elephants, making it a globally important conservation area. It is covering 356,800 ha area within the administrative region of Lampung and Bengkulu Provinces.

Many other species of flora and fauna are found there as well, some of which are endemic. The park area has also become an important area for unique and threatened plant species like the Rafflesia spp. and giant flower Amorphophallus spp. For regional importance, the park has ecologically served as water cathment area and hydro-orology to settlements and farming areas in lower regions of as a minimum 4 districts of two provinces.

Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, Extremely rich in biodiversity, the park has been designated by UNESCO as the Cluster Mountainous Tropical Rainforest Herritage Site of Sumatera, together with Kerinci Seblat National Park and Gunung Leuser National Park


Threats to the Park

Three main threats face the health and viability of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park are land encroachment, poaching and illegal logging. Of the three, illegal encroachment and conversion of the forest for agricultural purposes is the most serious.

In 2007, WWF released the landmark study “Gone in an Instant” reporting that an estimated 28 per cent (or 89,224 hectares) of the park’s original forest cover has been destroyed as a result of encroachment, mostly for coffee plantation development. Sixty per cent of those encroached area or 55,042 ha are now active agricultural land, while the remaining of 33,822 ha is re-growing grass, shrub or secondary forest. The study was done using satellite imagery for land cover, data analysis, field surveys, and chain of custody.

The study shows that ca. 20.000 tons of a total of about 285,000 tons of Robusta coffee produced in Lampung was illegally grown inside the park. The report made a convincing case that the booming growth of coffee production in southern Sumatra has led to a dramatic loss of biodiversity in the region.

WWF believes that unless effective countermeasures are established and implemented to stop habitat loss - and human-wildlife clashes resulted from deforestation, the native wildlife species Sumateran tigers, rhinoceros, and elephants will be extinct in one decade.


Six Top Achievement in Bukit Barisan Selatan Conservation Project.

A. Human Elephant Conflict Mitigation
In December 2007, alongside with the stakeholders we are able to relocate 4 remaining elephants in Sekincau area inside Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) National Park. Comprehensive data are available, including movie on the elephants before and during the relocation process. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient data on the elephants’ condition after the relocation. Information on how they adapt with native elephants and their new habitat will be an important lesson for future elephant conservation project.

B. Joint Community Patrol
We have conducted Joint Community Patrol (JCP) with BBS National Park authority since 2004. The purposes of such joint effort are to increase capacity and intensity of BBS National Park law enforcement operation, with the help of local communities. The outcome of the community patrol are the decrease rate of encroachment, punishment given to illegal loggers and poachers, as well as improvement on BBS authority’s data base to help future management practice. It is projected by 2013, the rate of new encroachments in BBSNP reduced by 70% (from data in 2006), and at minimum 50% of encroached area (old encroachment from data in 2006) has been left and at least 25% of this abandoned area has been restored. Areal patrol and monitoring effort must be conducted on regular basis, due to constant threat to the national park.

C. Propose Bengkunat Conservation Area
Bengkunat is the remaining extensive forest area bordering to the BBS National Park. A third of key species population (rhino, tiger and elephant) in BBS National Park, inhabit this area. We are encouraging Regency Government to protect this remaining forest.  We are also advocating the establishment of local regulation for protection and sustainable management as well as endorsing solution for local community occupying this forest area.

D. Road Management
There are nine roads bypassing BBS National Park, four of them has granted permit from Minister of Forestry and three of them are in a good condition and intensively utilized. Most of the roads cause negative impact to BBS National Park such as encroachment. The Minister of Forestry-approved Sanggi-Bengkunat road is the only road that causes less encroachment impact. But still this road initiates negative impact for species movement. We are now providing information and raising awareness on this issue. Next step is campaigning on the importance of finding solution that will minimize the negative impacts of the road. On the national level, we are encouraging the Ministry of Public Works to draft instruction manual on road development in conservation area.

E. Sustainable Coffee and Other Commodity
WWF are campaigning on “Gone in an Instant” report. This report illustrates how illegally-cultivated coffee in BBS National Park is mixed with legal coffee cultivated outside of the national park, then distributed globally. To follow up this report, we facilitate Coffee and Conservation Workshop. This workshop was attended by farmers, traders, exporters, importers, coffee association, NGO, and government representatives at local and national level. The workshops initiated “Coffee and Conservation Declaration”. We are collaborating with coffee industry key players to draft a sustainable coffee production scheme and mechanism that will ensure globally-traded coffee is not cultivated from BBS National Park. We are hoping that this effort will promote farmers welfare and eventually decrease encroachment rates in the national park.

F. Initiating Conservation Support Network
WWF-Indonesia acknowledges that no conservation effort will succeed without supports from others. Alongside with the stakeholders in 2003, we established KKR-PSDAL (Voluntary Group for Lampung Natural Resource Management) and in 2004, initiated Working Group on Land Use and Spatial Planning. One of the forum activities is drafting local regulation on natural resource and environment management. In 2008, we initiated the establishment of Communication Forum for Lampung Forests Conservation incorporating political parties, academics, NGOs, mass organizations, and governments. Incorporating political parties and mass organizations is a new measure to avoid conflict on forest-related issues.