Lorentz National Park, Representative of Asia Pacific Biodiversity

INDEPHEDIA.com - Lorentz National Park is a national park located in Papua Province, Indonesia, with an area of ​​2.4 million hectares and the largest national park in Southeast Asia. In 1999, Lorentz National Park was accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The name of this national park is taken from a Dutch explorer, Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz, who passed this area in 1909 which was his 10th expedition in the national park.

Lorentz National Park is representative of the most complete ecosystem for biodiversity in the Asia Pacific. This region is also one of the three regions in the world that has glaciers in the tropics.

This national park stretches from a snow-capped mountain peak (5,030 meters above sea level), to stretching into coastal waters with mangroves and the Arafura Sea watershed. In this stretch, there is an amazing ecological spectrum from the alpine, sub-alpine, montane, sub-montane, lowland and wetland vegetation areas.

Besides having high biodiversity, there are also some peculiarities and uniqueness of glaciers on Puncak Jaya and rivers that disappear several kilometers into the ground in the Baliem Valley.

A total of 34 types of vegetation include swamp forest, riverside forest, sago forest, peat forest, coral sand beach, flatland / slope rain forest, hill rain forest, kerangas forest, mountain forest, grassland, and crust moss.

Meanwhile, plant species in this national park include nipah (Nypa fruticans), mangrove (Rhizophora apiculata), Pandanus julianettii, Colocasia esculenta, Avicennia marina, Podocarpus pilgeri, and Nauclea coadunata.

The area also has a mineral supply, and large-scale mining operations are also active around this national park. There is also the Lorentz National Park Conservation Project which consists of a community initiative for communal conservation and heritage ecology around this Loretz National Park.

This national park has high biodiversity and is supported by amazing cultural diversity. It is estimated, the culture is tens of thousands of years old and the residence of the Nduga, West Dani, Amungme, Sempan and Asmat tribes. (ART.IN/ENG/*)