Vast Area of Sumatran Rainforest to Receive Protection

BirdLife International today announced that 101,000 hectares of Sumatra's dry lowland rainforest are to be protected and restored by a coalition of conservation organizations.

The area, recently named the Harapan Rainforest, is home to the critically endangered Sumatran tiger whose numbers have fallen to between 100 and 300 individuals. The forest also provides habitat for Asian elephants, Malayan tapirs, gibbons, sun bears, and more than 267 species of birds (71 of which are endangered).

But tigers and birds are not the only ones who will benefit from the establishment of the conservation area. An indigenous people, the Batin Sembilan, who harvest food from the forest and rely on a healthy ecosystem to sustain themselves will now have a place to maintain their traditional lifestyle.

Until recently, the fate of this stretch of rainforest looked grim. Deforestation in Indonesia is relentless. Trees are felled at alarming rates for timber and palm oil production. But a recent shift in Indonesia's forestry law brings renewed hope among conservationists. Graham Wynne, the Chief Executive of the RSPB, emphasized the importance of the Harapan Rainforest project:

“It is difficult to express just how significant this breakthrough is. There have been many times in the last five years when our hopes of saving Harapan Rainforest had all but ebbed away.”

And BirdLife's Marco Lambertini expresses optimism for repeated conservation successes in the future:

“...the Harapan Rainforest initiative, and the Indonesian government’s support for it, could mark a turning point for the country’s forests, a new hope for their conservation.”

The project will be managed by Burung Indonesia, the RSPB, and BirdLife International.

Find out more: Indonesia's First 'Restoration Forest' Gives Hope to Last Rainforests in Sumatra (BirdLife International)

Top: Photo © Marco Lambertini / Birdlife International. Sumatran Tiger, of which there are just 100-300 that remain in the wild. Bottom: Photo © Dave Watts / BirdLife International. The BirdLife Partnership successfully ended the logging in the northern region of the Harapan rainforest in August 2006.