Current condition

Under business as usual, managing national parks would be facing challenges from land encroachment and illegal activities within the area of the parks. Population density is always increasing while land availability to fulfill people’s need is very limited.

One of the national park landscape

Gunung Halimun Salak National Park (GHSNP) is one of the park that facing those challenges. In the last 15 years (1989-2004), deforestation rate has been reaching 20% from the current total size (113,357). It was due to timber cutting, shifting cultivation, illegal logging, illegal mining and other development. It is located in three administrative districts: Bogor and Sukabumi in West Java and Lebak in the province of Banten.

women in the village inside the park: preparing rice

With the support of Japan government, CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) has been implementing a project entitled “Sustainable Utilization of Diverse Forest Environmental Benefits”.

Traditional house in one village inside the park

Research activities and its benefits

Dr. Bambang Supriyanto (former Park Manager) said that,“ the project provides practical tool in maximizing social energy for conservation and community livelihood which allow people to take non timber product i.e. resin, while they have to protect the forests”.

Dr. Bambang (left) and Dr. Gen Takao sign a collaboration letter

“Some proportion of the income from tapping activities will be used for restoration purpose by means planting pine plantation” added Mr. Istanto, current park manager.

According to Dr. Gen Takao, Japan scientists as well as Project manager, “The key activities of this collaboration project was empowering community through conservation education, conflict resolution, payment for environmental services (non timber forest product/resin), self restoration and alternative income generation”.

The 500 plant species book

For the future restoration purposes in this area, we made a book about vegetation information entitled: Five hundred plant species in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, West Java: a checklist including Sundanese names, distribution and use. The book co-authored by Hari Priyadi, Gen Takao, Irma Rahmawati, Bambang Supriyanto, Wim Ikbal Nursal and Ismail Rahman. It is joint co-authorship with CIFOR, Ministry of Forestry and Indonesian Science Institute/LIPI.

Mr. Mumu, officer from the park is doing a short briefing

More than 700 species of flowering plants, belonging to 390 genera and 119 families, have been found in the park’s natural forest. Plantation forests in the park were originally production forests managed by a state-owned company, but are now managed by the park authority.

We made three visits to different areas including Gunung Halimun, Gunung Salak and the park’s buffer zone, and collected data from 990 trees. The aim of this guide is to provide succinct information on the park’s forest species, and to highlight their Sundanese vernacular names as an entry point.

Initially, we recorded 142 species from 54 families, but after further consideration decided to add more species important to the area, such as commercial timber species, fruits trees and medicinal plants. In total, 500 species were included. Information given on each species comprises its Sundanese name, scientific name, family, vernacular name and geographical distribution. In most cases, the species’ uses are also listed.

As 2010 is the Year of Biodiversity, we hope this guide will give both experts and park visitors a deeper understanding of the abundant variety of species in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park.

For more information about the book, please download through following hyperlink:

http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/nc/online-library/browse/view-publication/publication/3235.html

one of plant species we found in the forest