T

he government is once again aiming to boost the country’s chance at making it onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List with a megalith site situated in Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi.

Despite the country’s failure to make it onto the list this year, authorities are optimistic about proposing the 2,500-year-old megalith site, believed to be the biggest in Southeast Asia, to be included on the prestigious list.

Preparations are under way, which include determining the site’s borders and status of the land where the megalith statues are situated, said Gorontalo Cultural Heritage Conservation Center head Zakaria Kasim.

Some areas have been converted into plantations by locals.

“Our target is to submit the proposal to UNESCO by 2021, at the latest, so that the megalith sites in Central Sulawesi can be acknowledged as World Heritages,” he said recently.

Central Sulawesi is home to thousands of megalith sites spread out in Poso, Sigi and Morowali regencies. Bada Valley, better known as Napu Valley, is a cultural site located in Lore Lindu National Park.

Discovered two centuries ago, the megalith statues, with their thin bodies and big heads, were believed to be from the 14th century. Ethnographers and theologians Nicolaus Adriani and Albertus Christian Kruijt were the first to publish information about the site in 1898 through their book entitled “Van Poso naar Parigi en Lindoe”.

The center, covering Central Sulawesi, Gorontalo and North Sulawesi, lists around 1,451 megalith statues spread out in the meadows of the park.

Bunga Elim Somba, an official at the Central Sulawesi provincial secretariat, said the province would go all out to promote Lore Lindu and the megalith site for the World Heritage List. She said the uniqueness of the megalith statues was in their high-quality granite that did not originate in the region.

“The origin of the granite still remains a mystery,” she said.

Besides the megalith statues, Lore Lindu National Park also boasts rich biodiversity and has been promoted as an ecotourism attraction by local administrations.

The country previously proposed Jakarta’s Kota Tua in 2015, as well as tourist destinations Raja Ampat in West Papua and Bunaken in North Sulawesi in 2005 to be included on the World Heritage List.

The Education and Culture Ministry’s Hilmar Farid said earlier that UNESCO had questioned Indonesia’s commitment to preserving previously proposed sites.

Eight tourist sites have been acknowledged as World Heritages by UNESCO, including Borobudur and Prambanan temples, subak — a traditional Balinese farming and irrigation system, and Komodo National Park.

Lore Lindu National Park itself, which also boasts rich biodiversity and is home to endemic animals of Sulawesi, is threatened by environmental damage caused by illegal gold mining. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has warned that illegal mining sites centered within the protected forest areas could lead to landslides.