Ujung Kulon National Park

The Park

The park’s 120.551 hectares are divided into 76.214 ha of land and 44.337 ha of surrounding reef and sea. It can roughly be separated into three areas: the triangular shaped Ujung kulon Peninsula, the Gunung Honje Range to the east of the peninsula’s isthmus and the island of Panaitan to the northwest. The highest points in the park are the 620 meters Gunung Honje, the Gunung Payung Range peaks of up to 500 meters and Panaitan Island ‘s Gunung Raksa at 320 meters. In the central section of the Peninsula is a large region of wilderness known as the Talanca Plateau which reaches 140 meters above sea level, however most consist of low rolling terrain seldom more than 50 meters above sea level.

The park surrounded by unusually warm water, seldom varying from between 29C to 30C. The coastlines of the park are molded by the sea around them, battered by Indian Ocean; the long sandy beaches of the south coast are backed by dunes, lagoons and forest broken by rocky outcrops a wild and wind swept shore line.The west coast’s reef-lined shore has cliffs, promontories and towering sea-stacks along sand and boulder beaches overhung by forest, creating the most spectacular coastline in the park.On the north coast, the sheltered tropical straits lap upon beaches of white sands and coral banks with islands, estuaries, swamps and forest lined shores.Along each coastline is variety of seascape which in all their diversity, offer a wide range of absorbing shoreline experiences.

GEOLOGY

The even that led to formation of the land we as Ujung kulon began about 200 years ago when what is now the Indian Continent broke away from the super-continent Gondwanaland. It collided with the Asian continent creating huge ripples across the earth’s crust forming the snow-clad Himalaya along with Sumatra’s mountain range, Bukit Barisan. It believed that the Ujung kulon Peninsula and the Gunung Honje Range were at that time the southern end of Bukit Barisan Range as Java and Sumatra were connected by a land-bridge. Then 20.000 to 15.000 years ago, the bridge collapsed to eventually form the Sunda Strait about 9.500 years ago.

How ever, the period when the strait was formed is somewhat contradicted by an intriguing account in an early Javanese chronicle The Book of Kings. It states that in the year 416 AD the mountain Kapi (Krakatau) burst into peaces and sunk into deepest of the earth and the sea flooded the land from Gunung Gede near Bogor to mountain Raja Basa in Southern Sumatra. The chronicle concludes: After the waters subsided the mountain Kapi and surrounding land became sea and the island of Java was divided into two parts.

It is a curious fact that no sea straits between Sumatra and Java was known before 1.100’s by the far ranging Chinese and Arabian traders and later European explores.Beneath the mountains and forest of Ujung kulon, carved by the thousands of centuries of rain, wind and sea, are foundation of the land – a young mountain system formed over the older strata of the Sunda Shelf. Geologically, the Ujung kulon Peninsula, Gunung Honje Range and Panaitan Island are part of this young tertiary mountain system while the central part of Ujungkulon is of older limestone formations which have been covered by alluvial deposits in the north and sandstone in the south. Much of underlying rocks and early soils of the park are covered by volcanic ash, in places up to 1 meter deep, a legacy from the Krakatau eruptions.

The mountain ranges were all formed by the same folding event in the Miocene period creating beneath the forest of the Gunung Honje Range an eastward tilting mountain block. A reminder of this activity is a geological fault line situated off the Tamanjaya coastline. It bisects the park beneath the isthmus as it passes through the Sunda straits connecting the volcanic islands of Krakatau to the major tectonic fault line to the south of Indonesia.

HISTORY

It is Indonesia's first proposed national park and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991 for containing the largest remaining lowland rainforest in Java. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and its tsunami wiped out many settlements in the later park area, and they were never fully repopulated. Surviving villages have now acclaimed cultural status as Kampung Wisata (literally 'Recreational Village')

Parts of today's national park and World Heritage site have been protected since the early 20th century. Krakatoa (or rather, the three islets which remain of it) was declared as a Nature Reserve in 1921, followed by Pulau Panaitan and Pulau Peucang Nature Reserve in 1937, the Ujung Kulon Nature Reserve in 1958, the Gunung Honje Nature Reserve in 1967, and most recently Ujung Kulon National Park in 1992. In 2005 the park was designated as an ASEAN Heritage Park

BIOLOGY And ECOLOGY

Ujung Kulon is one of 3 National Parks in Java hosting a lowland rainforest habitat, the rest being Baluran and Alas Purwo National Park. It therefore has a similarly built ecosystem, despite being much wetter than the latter national parks from East Java due to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. With the exception of the Javan tiger, virtually all fauna that could be found in pre-settlement Javan lowland rainforests can be found here, including the Javan rhino.

FLORA

So far 175 species of plants have been observed, with 148 being native, and 57 being potected, This includes mangroves (such as Sonneratia alba, Excoecaria agallocha, Rhizophora apiculata, Aegiceras corniculatum), coastal plants (Nypa fruticans, Calophyllum inophyllum, Terminalia catappa, Hibiscus tiliaceus, etc.), Figs (e.g. Ficus benjamina, Ficus deltoidea, Ficus racemosa, Ficus septica) and other lowland vegetation (Lantana camara, Oroxylum indicum, Melastoma malabathricum, Sterculia foetida, Durio zibethinus, Cissus discolor etc.)

Three of the protected rare flora are namely Heritiera percoriacea, Vatica bantamensis, and Intsia bijuga

There is currently one particular species of plant that is wreaking havoc, especially towards the rhino conservation program, the Arenga palm (Arenga obtusifolia). This species of palm has been noted to grow in such a manner, starving the undergrowth of sunlight, which reduces food supply for the rhinos. Local authorities have claimed that eradication efforts have been and will continue to go on.

FAUNA

Ujung Kulon is the last known refuge for the critically endangered Javan rhinoceros after the death of the last remaining Javan rhino in Cát Tiên National Park, Vietnam, where a small population of 10 or less remained in 2010. In Ujung Kulon the population has been estimated at 40–60 in the 1980s. Within 2001-2010 there have been 14 rhino births identified using camera and video traps. Based on recordings taken between February and October 2011, 35 rhinoceros had been identified, of which 22 were males and 13 females. Of these 7 were old, 18 adults, 5 youngsters, and 5 infant rhinos. Increasing from previous years, in 2013 there were 8 calves of which 3 of them were female and 50 teenage and adult of which 20 of them were female identified using 120 video cameras functioning at night with motion sensors. It can be said to be accurate data, since every rhino has its own unique morphology, mainly from skin wrinkles around the eyes.[ Current estimates are allegedly set to about 75 rhinos

By 2013 feeding areas of Eupatorium odoratum vegetation have been reduced from 10 locations comprising 158 hectares (390 acres) to 5 locations comprising 20 hectares (49 acres). This has increased competition for feeding grounds between the local rhino and banteng population.