Text: Andreea Lotak; Photos: Justin & Andreea Lotak ᛫ 15 min read

Nature documentaries, especially when you grow up with them, have a way of cultivating a deep state of wanderlust for distant, remote corners of the world. Of all of these faraway lands, tropical rainforests hold a special place in the imagination of your inner child: they are places where amazing tree canopies shrouded in mist and clouds are teeming with hundreds of species of birds, primates, lizards, and snakes; where thunders rumble in the distance and the rain falls thick, swelling up rivers and bringing life to these remote landscapes.

When we set foot in Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia, we needed to readjust our expectations to reality: where had all those hundreds of wildlife species we were seeing in documentaries and atlases gone? In fact they were all there, but we could hear them more than we could see them: the constant buzz of giant cicadas, the haunting calls of hornbills, the loud chitchat of endemic Thomas’s leaf monkeys, and the tree canopy moving under the weight of Sumatran orangutans. Slowly, our eyes began to adjust with help from our guide and we began to see all this amazing wildlife around us, hidden by the dense vegetation, but it still felt somehow incomplete. Then, on our second day in the national park, we heard the calls of siamangs (largest gibbon species) in the distance and all that sense of wonder building up since childhood came rushing over as if we were explorers from the past, when the Earth was still a great unknown. It stopped us in our tracks and we just sat there, listening to them approaching, but never getting close enough to be within sight. To this day, they remain the most mesmerizing wildlife species we never got to see.

Gunung Leuser National Park’s size is about 2.4 million acres (1 million ha), shaped like two lungs in the middle of a much larger area of high importance for conservation: the Leuser Ecosystem. Together with two other national parks, it forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra — a place with an estimated number of 10,000 plant species, 200 mammals, 580 birds, and 95 reptiles and amphibians. This national park was designated in 1980, but that didn’t stop the destruction encroaching upon it from illegal logging, infrastructure development, poaching and oil palm plantations. Luckily, the past few years have seen a major improvement in the protection of wildlife and forest habitat from poaching and illegal plantations, and local governments have agreed to cooperate in the protection of the larger Leuser Ecosystem. All the species in our photo story exist today still thanks to the work of amazing organizations and initiatives. They have been raising awareness internationally of what is now known as “the last place on Earth” where Sumatran orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos coexist, while also finding local solutions to help communities understand the value of protecting the Leuser. The impact of our choices at home, from reducing or eliminating consumption of products made with palm oil to buying used furniture or avoiding those made from unsustainable tropical wood, can help with the protection of this beautiful wild corner of the planet. When visiting, make a point to find guides that respect wildlife, spend locally without demanding the cheapest prices, and enjoy the wonder of being in one of the most biodiverse forests in the world.

If you’re planning to visit Gunung Leuser you can read our online travel guide to four conservation areas in Indonesia, including this beautiful national park: