Kerinci Seblat National Park offers a Treasure Trove of Experiences for tourists and travelers.
The Park’s varied geography supports a vast array of ecosystems, as well as a staggering
diversity of plants and animals. Many rare and endangered species can be observed here, including the Sumatran Tiger. The Park’s 370 bird species (17 of which are endemic) have made Kerinci Seblat a destination for birders from around the world.
Activities available in the Park range from trekking and mountain climbing (at 3,805 meters, Gunung Kerinci is the second highest peak in Indonesia), to caving, to bird and animal watching, to lounging in natural hot springs.
The same tectonic movement that caused the Indian plate to go crashing into the mainland Asian plate, causing the Himalayas to be formed some 60 million years ago, was also responsible for the stress on the earth’s crust that created the Barisan range. This spine of mountains runs down the west of Sumatra and forms the major geographical feature of the landscape of the Kerinci Seblat. Nearly 86% of the park area is classified as ‘mountain systems’. These comprise ranges formed from sedimentary rock, and both active and dormant volcanoes, including Indonesia’s highest, Gunung Kerinci.
In the east of the park and area of limestone hills has some cave systems including the archaeologically interesting Tianko Panjang cave. The Kerinci valley runs between the park’s two main mountain areas and is a graben valley - an elongated depression caused when the earth’s surface subsides between two fault lines. Faults
beneath the valley still cause earthquakes and slight tremors happen most years. The last major earthquake occurred in 1995 and measured 7.1 on the Ricther scale. It caused structural damage that can still be seen on the mosque at Kampung Imam. and claimed over 100 victims. The Vulcanology station in Kersik Tuo still keeps the seismographic printout of this incident and the staff there are happy to show it to tourists.
Geography
Gunung Kerinci is the highest volcano in Indonesia and the second highest mountain. It is still very active and smoke can often be seen pouring from the cone. It last erupted in 1934 but ash eruptions are not uncommon. Kerinci is also characterized by some interesting wetlands. South of the principle town Sungai Penuh is Lake Kerinci, a relatively recent creation formed when volcanic material from Gunung
Raya blocked the valley. Higher up the valley is the upland swamp at Rawa Bento and the peat swamp forests of Ladeh Panjang. At the foot of Gunung Kerinci lies the small crater lake Danau Belibis. Most spectacular of all is the caldera lake of Gunung Tujuh, formed when the exhausted volcanic cone filled with water.
Kerinci Seblat National Park links the lowlands to the east and west to the mountains in a
continuous forested reserve, giving the park great ecological value. The upper catchments of Sumatra’s longest river Sungai Batanghari, and largest, Sungai Musi are protected here, and many smaller river flow from the park area. More than three million people and some four million hectares of agricultural land are dependent on a sustainable water supply from these rivers. In a steep watershed prone to erosion, forests fill a vital role in regulating water flow. Local people are well aware of the relationship between tree clearing and the drastic landslides and soil loss that often follow, also realizing that as more forest is lost both the cycle of troughts and floods is becoming increasingly problematic
Sumatran Tiger
Sumatra’s largest and most magnificent predator is also its most threatened. Smallest of the world’s five surviving tiger sub-species, the Sumatran tiger is the last of the three island races formerly found in Indonesia. The Balinese tiger was hunted into extinction at some time in the late 1940s and the Javanese tiger almost certainly became extinct in the late 1980s.
Today, even the Sumatran tiger, which once roamed throughout the island, is itself considered ‘critically endangered’. Safeguarding the future of the species is a priority of the Government of Indonesia which now operates a Sumatran Tiger Project (www.fivetigers.org).
The 13,000 square kilometres of the Kerinci Seblat National Park and the park’s surviving,
buffer-zone forests may offer one of the best chances for a genetically viable, long-term future for the species. Unlike the tiger of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, tiger in the Kerinci Seblat enjoy a generally good reputation with forest-edge communities and, in most areas, the most common description for tiger is sopan (polite).
Incidents of attacks on people are very rare. Indeed tradition says that, in the event of a tiger attack, either the victim or the community was at fault — and not the tiger. It is a belief which seems to have some substance in science — tiger attacks on either people or livestock can often be linked to habitat destruction or to poaching of tiger prey species or even of tiger.
Not only are the tigers in the national park usually ‘polite’ they are, in contrast to their menacing reputation, also shy creatures who do their best to avoid mankind, retreating, where possible, before contact is made. Most visitors are only likely to see footprints in the soil.
Local legend says that a tiger which meets a person must pay a penalty by not eating for 40 days and nights. Not only shy and polite, Kerinci tigers are also said to be helpful — many forest workers insist that, if lost in the forest, one should call upon ‘Si Rajah’ (the king) or ‘Nene’
(grandfather) for help; the resident tiger will then arrive to lead the lost person back to the nearest trail out of the forest.
Tiger in the Kerinci Seblat have an extraordinary vocal range, of which the famous but rarely heard imau moan-roar is but one. More often heard is the soft whoof of a startled tiger hastily retreating from contact, the rusty, rising whine of an anxious tiger, the chicken-like clucking of a curious tiger. Local people also insist that tigers in some areas of the Kerinci Seblat, can whistle. Bird watchers beware!
Within the park, tiger prey ranges from larger animals such as sambar deer Cervus unicolor and barking deer Muntiacus muntjak to small mammals like pangolins Manis javanica and porcupine Hystrix brachyura. Most critically, tiger are highly effective controllers of wild pig Sus scrofa and Sus barbatus populations which are a major crop pest on farms around the park.
Birding
It is not just for rare and endangered animals and unique plants and trees that the Kerinci
Seblat National Park is famous. Among bird watchers the park is internationally recognised as the place to see many of Sumatra’s 610 (Kukila Vol.11, Nov.2000) recorded bird species and the majority of the island’s endemic birds.
More than 360 different species of bird have been recorded in the Kerinci Seblat National Park
from the species-rich lowland hill forests of the Bengkulu, Sumatra Barat and Sumatra Selatan provinces. But it is in the higher reaches of the park, notably on the slopes of mountains such as Kerinci and Gunung Tujuh, that most of Sumatra’s endemic birds are found (generally at altitudes above 1000 meters).
The KSNP birdlist is still far from definitive and previously unrecorded continue to be seen.
Salvadori’s Pheasant and Schneider’s Pitta were both birds rediscovered in the park in the late 1980s. More recently, the Sumatran Cochoa (1994) and Giant pitta (1996) joined the park’s bird list — the latter after more than a century’s absence from the Sumatra bird list. Intrepid
birders are hoping to ‘re-find’ the Sunda Ground-cuckoo in the park. The species is known only from museum specimens, the latest of was dated 1912. Hopes that the ground-cuckoo might indeed be
in the park were raised in 1998 when two hunters independently described a bird fitting the description and behaviour of a ground-cuckoo. Birders visiting Kerinci are presented with the possibility of making exciting contributions to ornithology as well as our knowledge of the park.
The mix of bird species changes according to altitude and habitat — a quite different range of birds will be encountered in farmland compared with forest. During the winter months many passage migrants stop in the ricefields (sawah) around Sungai Penuh — where Milky Stork, Schrenk,s
Bittern, egrets, Purple Moorhen and other rails and crakes have all been spotted. To get a comprehensive picture of the richness of the park’s bird life, visitors should try to spend time at various altitudes — the major species watersheds occur at approximately the
following points: 100-500m, 600-1200m, 1300-2500m and above. The most popular areas for seeing the park’s speciality species are the trail up Gunung Kerinci
and the Gunung Tujuh trail. Birding from the Muara Sako road is also popular. Up to date
information on where key species are being seen can be found in the birder’s log kept in
Subandi’s Losman in Kersik Tuo.
Schneider’s Pitta and Sumatran Peacock Pheasant are most commonly seen in the forest on the lower slopes of Gunung Kerinci — within 500m of the entrance and 200m to either side of Shelter
1. Sumatran Cochoa has been seen a number of times along this trail near Shelter 2.
The best area to see the park’s other rare pittas — is along the road below Bukit Tapan, on the
road to Tapan (and Muara Sako) at an altitude of around 900 metres. It’s call is like a Garnet
Pitta but a little bit lower in pitch. Look on steep slopes along small rivers. Hooded and Giant
pitta have also been heard along this road. A full explanation on where the species have been
seen can be found in Pak Subandi’s logbook.
Birds can be identified using the comprehensive field guide Birds of Sumatra, Borneo, Java and
Bali by John MacKinnon and Karen Phillipps published by Oxford University Press. This field
guide is published in both the English and Indonesian languages. The Indonesian version has been
up-dated and corrected by Bas van Balen. The English version is not available in Indonesia so buy
it before you come. The Periplus Travel guide Birding Indonesia by Paul Jepson provides further
information and travel advice on birding in Kerinci and in 100 other key birding sites in
Indonesia. It is currently available from most airport and hotel bookshops in Indonesia. Other
useful sources of information on birding and bird conservation in the region are the web-sites of
the Oriental Bird Club and BirdLife International’s Indonesia Programme.
Source : www.kerinci.org
Add comment February 7th, 2007