Kerinchi Seblat National Park - Home to Asia's oldest tropical rainforest
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| Covering close to 1.4 million hectares, Kerinci-Seblat National Park is one of the largest conservation areas in Southeast Asia, and harbours the oldest tropical rainforest in Asia. The National Park protects the world's largest flowers and hundreds of plants and animals not found anywhere else in the world. It also nestles several mountain lakes, notably Danau Gunung Tujuh (danau means lake) or "Lake of Seven Mountains," the highest caldera lake in Southeast Asia, with an altitude of almost 2,000 meters (ASEAN/JICA/UNEP, undated). Kerinci-Seblat lies in nine districts of four provinces of Sumatra: West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Jambi, and Bengkulu. Kerinci was decreed a National Park in November 1992 by the Minister of Forestry, and then officially gazetted through a Decree issued by the Minister of Forestry and Estate Crops in October 1999 (KSNP Management Framework, 2002-2006). Together with Gunung Leuser and Bukit Barisan National Parks, Kerinci-Seblat is part of the 2.5 million-hectare Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 2004 (www.unesco.org). |
| Details on Kerinchi Seblat National Park are available in the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity’s (ACB) "The ASEAN Heritage Parks", A Journey to the Natural Wonders of Southeast Asia, October 2010. Please contact ACB for access of this book. |