Sumatran National Park to Expand; Tigers and Elephants Still in Peril

Sumatra’s Tesso Nilo national park will double in size, providing a haven for more of the Indonesian island’s endangered elephants and tigers. The park, which will grow to 212,500 acres, has the world’s greatest lowland plant diversity, with 4,000 species documented since its founding four years ago. However, the park designation alone offers insufficient protection for the endangered animals, the conservation group WWF says: Illegal logging and poaching have reduced the park’s populations to around 50 tigers and 60 to 80 elephants. In the park’s province of Riau, those numbers have dropped from 650 tigers and 1,250 elephants 25 years ago to just 192 tigers and 210 elephants today. Riau’s deforestation rate is the highest in Indonesia, which has the world’s third-highest greenhouse gas emissions. Since the 1980s, 65 percent of the province’s forest cover has been destroyed.