The management of the Kerinci Seblat National Park in West Sumatra and Jambi provinces has confirmed that it will not allow roads to be built within the park due to the potential of environmental damage
he management of the Kerinci Seblat National Park in West Sumatra and Jambi provinces has confirmed that it will not allow roads to be built within the park due to the potential of environmental damage.
The head of the Kerinci Seblat center, M. Arief Toengkagie, said construction of any road in the national park would greatly facilitate illegal logging, farming and hunting in the area.
'This is our firm stance in securing the area against damage,' Arief said on Thursday.
Arief expressed concern after individuals, politicians and local administration officers said they would strive to have roads built that passed through the park.
He said local administrations had been proposing the construction of five major roads that would pass through the park for the past decade.
Of the proposed roads, he said, only one had been officially rejected by the Forestry Ministry in 2012, namely a 45-kilometer road from Kambang in South Pesisir regency to Muara Labuh in South Solok regency.
The other four proposed roads would originate in Jambi. They include a 22-km road from Lempur (Kerinci regency) to Sungai Ipuh (Mukomuko regency, Bengkulu), a 14-km road from Masgo (Kerinci regency) to Tanah Tumbuh (Bungo regency), a 23-km road from Masgo to Sungai Tebal (Merangin regency) and a 14-km road from Renah Pemetik (Kerinci regency) to Tanah Tumbuh (Bungo regency).
According to Arief, of the four roads, only the Lempur to Sungai Ipuh road had been given the nod by the Kerinci Seblat management, but only as a trail.
'We stopped it when they had built only half of it,' he said.
He expressed hope that local officials and politicians would stop making promises that roads passing through the park would be built.
He suggested that they focus more on expanding existing roads outside the park both for economic and evacuation purposes.
Arief said the park management's stance was aimed at improving the park as part of the Tropical Rainforest Heritage Sumatra (TRHS), a UNESCO world heritage site.
The TRHS gained UNESCO recognition in 2004 and was made a heritage site in 2011 as it has potential for the conservation of the diverse flora and fauna of Sumatra. The park is also home to many endangered species.
The TRHS comprises three national parks covering a combined area of 2.8 million hectares, with Kerinci Seblat covering the majority of the area with almost 1.4 million hectares followed by Mount Leuser National Park with 1 million hectares and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park with 365,000 hectares.
The director of Indonesian Conservation Community (KKI) Warsi, Diki Kurniawan, expressed concern over the fact that local officials and politicians continued to campaign for the development of roads passing through the conservation area.
'They need to be made aware,' he said.
Diki said national parks like Kerinci Seblat were the last fortresses of nature in Indonesia to which the government should pay serious attention. He also suggested that the government pay attention to people living in the park and its buffer zones to help control any damage.
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