Tourism Information

Wildlife tourism destinations are generally in the form of national parks. Indeed Indonesia has a large capital to develop wildlife tourism. The reason is, this country has 54 national parks. One of the most popular is the Gunung Leuser National Park (TNGL), a 1,094,692 hectare national park, with an area of ​​850 kilometers. About 80 percent of the GLNP area is in the Province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and the rest in the Province of North Sumatra.

The TNGL area is the only national park in Indonesia that is inhabited by four endemic wildlife species, which are highly endangered, namely the Sumatran orangutan or mawas (Pongo abelii), Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatrensis), Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), and Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae).

The international conservation organization IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) put the four animals on the red list or the IUCN Red List in the critically endangered category. The four are also included in Appendix I to the Convention on International Trade in Plants and Wildlife (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species / CITES).

The main entrance of the TNGL area which is the most popular and almost always crowded by tourists is Bukit Lawang Village, one of the main villages buffering TNGL in the Bahorok District, Langkat Regency, North Sumatra. Bukit Lawang is 68 kilometers northwest of Binjai City, the second largest and most populous city in North Sumatra after Medan City. Between Bukit Lawang and the center of Medan City (Big Post Office) a distance of about 90 kilometers. Bukit Lawang has been famous since the early 1970s thanks to the presence of a 200-hectare benign orangutan rehabilitation center and panoramic views of the tropical rainforest. Rehabilitated orangutans are confiscated from the community to be released back to nature. The released orangutan was classified as semi-wild. The orangutan rehabilitation center has not been operating since 2017.

Various activities can be carried out by visitors. Many tour operators in Bukit Lawang offer jungle trekking or jungle trekking packages and navigate the Bahorok River rapids with tires (tubbing) and rubber boots.