Kerinci Seblat National Park

Listen first. Somewhere in the canopy above you, a long rising call starts, then another answers it, and soon the whole hillside is ringing. These are siamang, the largest of the gibbons, and they often sing in the morning. The air is wet and cool. It smells of moss, rotting leaves, and something sweet you cannot quite name. Underfoot, the ground is soft and springy, layered with centuries of fallen forest. Welcome to Kerinci Seblat National Park.

This is the largest national park on the island of Sumatra. It is also one of the largest protected areas in all of Southeast Asia. The park stretches for hundreds of kilometres along the Barisan Mountains, the volcanic spine that runs down the western side of the island. Its land falls across four provinces: Bengkulu, where you are now, together with Jambi, West Sumatra, and South Sumatra. No single town or road can show you the whole of it. Every visitor sees only one small window.

From the Bengkulu side, the journey usually begins near the coast, in a hot and humid lowland. The road then climbs into the hills. Rice fields give way to coffee gardens, and coffee gardens give way to forest. The temperature drops as you gain height. Clouds often settle on the ridges in the afternoon. Many travellers say the change feels like moving between two climates in a single morning... and in a sense, that is exactly what happens.

The park is famous for its height. At its northern end stands Mount Kerinci, an active volcano and the highest volcano in Indonesia. Its summit rises more than 3,800 metres above the sea. On clear days, a thin plume of gas can rise from the crater. Below the peak, the slopes hold layer after layer of forest. Lowland rainforest grows at the bottom, mossy montane forest grows higher up, and near the top the trees thin out into scrub and bare volcanic rock.

This range of heights is the reason for so much life. Each band of altitude has its own plants and its own animals. In 2004, UNESCO listed Kerinci Seblat as part of a World Heritage Site called the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. Two other Sumatran national parks share that listing. A few years later, the site was placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger. The main concerns were illegal logging, road building, and forest clearing for farms.

Now, here is something many visitors do not know. This forest is one of the most important strongholds for the Sumatran tiger. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest living tiger, with darker fur and narrower stripes than its mainland relatives. It is critically endangered. Kerinci Seblat is thought to hold one of the largest remaining populations on the island. You will almost certainly not see one. But rangers and researchers find their tracks, and camera traps in the deep forest record them at night.

The tiger shares this forest with other rare animals. Sun bears climb trees in search of honey. Clouded leopards move through the branches. Tapirs, with their black front and pale back, feed quietly in the undergrowth. Overhead, hornbills fly past with a heavy, whooshing beat of their wings. You often hear a hornbill before you see it. Keep your eyes on the treetops when that sound passes over you.

Bengkulu has a special connection with one plant in particular. Rafflesia arnoldii produces the largest single flower in the world. It has no leaves, no stem, and no roots of its own. It lives as a parasite inside a forest vine, and then bursts out as a huge, fleshy, red-brown bloom with pale spots. The flower smells like rotting meat. That smell attracts the flies that pollinate it. Each bloom lasts only a few days before it collapses and turns black.

The flower carries the name of Stamford Raffles, the British colonial official. In the early nineteenth century, Raffles served at Bencoolen, the old British name for Bengkulu. Western science first described the flower from a specimen found in this region, on an expedition with the naturalist Joseph Arnold. That is why the flower bears both of their names. Today, Bengkulu proudly calls itself the land of the Rafflesia, and you will see the flower on signs and monuments across the province.

The forest also holds a second giant. The titan arum, or corpse flower, grows in the wet forests of Sumatra. Its flower spike can rise taller than a person. Like the Rafflesia, it gives off a strong smell of decay when it blooms. Both plants flower unpredictably. If local guides tell you that a bloom has opened nearby, go and see it. A chance like that may not come again on your trip.

The mountains here also carry stories. Villagers on the edges of the park tell of the orang pendek, which means short person in Indonesian. According to these tales, it is a small, upright, hairy creature that walks through the deep forest. Some travellers and researchers have searched for it. No one has produced clear proof. Whether you believe in it or not, the story shows how large and unknown this forest still feels to the people who live beside it.

People have lived around these mountains for a very long time. Farming villages sit in the valleys at the edge of the park. Many families grow coffee, cinnamon, and rice. On the Jambi side, wide tea plantations cover the slopes below Mount Kerinci. These communities depend on the rivers that flow out of the forest. Protecting the park means protecting their water too. For this reason, much of the conservation work here involves local people and local rangers.

If you walk into the forest, go with a licensed guide. The trails can be steep, muddy, and confusing, and the weather changes fast. Leeches are common after rain, so cover your legs. Move slowly, and speak quietly. The forest rewards patience. A bird you missed on the way in may appear on the way out. A sound you ignored at first may turn out to be water, or a gibbon, or wind moving across a whole ridge at once.

Before you leave, stand still for one more minute. Look at the leaves closest to you — the drops of water on them, the insects moving along the stems. Then look further out, to the green slopes rolling away into cloud. Somewhere out there, a tiger is resting, a flower is slowly opening, and a river is starting its long run to the sea. You have seen only one small part of this forest. That is how it should be.