The Leuser National Park or Taman Nasional Gunung Leuser (TNGL) has been recognized as a “World Heritage Site” by UNESCO. It is located inside the Leuser Ecosystem which constitutes the third largest tropical rainforest complex in the world, after Amazon Forest in Brazil and the Zaire Forest in Africa. Leuser Ecosystem is a source of direct livelihoods, water supplies, and food supply for more than 4 million people in Aceh and North Sumatra. It contains a wide range of habitats including beaches, swamps, rivers, lowlands, highlands, and mountains. Leuser is the only ecosystem in the world where five rare wildlife species live side by side in the same region, namely: the Sumatran Elephant (Elephas maximus), the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatranus), the Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), the Malayan Sunbear (Helarctos malayanus), and the Sumatran Orang-utan (Pongo abelii). Likewise, its environmental services offer hundred millions dollar of economic value.
Deforestation rate of 23,000 hectares annually. Severe depletion with the loss of more than 1,6 million hectares in the last 60 years. Poorly controlled infrastructure development and mining. Conversion of forest to tree crop plantations (palm oil). Settlement expansion. Smallholder encroachment, illegal logging, poaching and many more..
