Few
areas in Sumatra have the biological richness that the Bengkung
river system had in the early 1980s. Few people had even been
there, but those who managed to do so returned with stories of
an unspoiled tropical forest paradise. The rivers teamed with
fish and one could rest on a branch overhanging a deep pool in
the Bengkung river and see layer upon layer of hundreds of large
fish circling lazily in the shaded waters below. At night when
the fish moved out to feed, gurgling sounds would emanate from
the stony shallows as shoals of 10 kg Jurung fish nudged the
boulders in search of shrimp and crustaceans that hid below. The
forests held healthy populations of the already rare Sumatran
Rhino, as well as all other forms of charismatic wildlife such
as tiger, orangutan, clouded leopard, golden cat, elephant,
serow, sunbear, and all the hornbills representative of northern
Sumatra. Being clothed in lowland forest the Bengkung harbored
numerous species of wild varieties of domestic fruit - six types
of durian, four species of citrus, at least eight varieties of
mango, two varieties of rambutan - the delicious fruit encased
in a hairy skin that gives the fruit its local name.
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The Leuser
Ecosystem is perhaps that only area in Southeast Asia with the size and
mix of habitats that has a realistic chance of supporting viable
populations of many of the endangered and charismatic species for which
the region is so well known. Elephants, tigers, rhinos, orangutans,
flying foxes, hornbills etc. need large areas and range widely according
to the seasons, and if these ranging patterns are not fully incorporated
in a conservation design then the populations of these rare species will
eventually wither and die. Many conservation areas in the world are
delineated in quite arbitrary ways. The designated Gunung Leuser
National Park, for instance, is based on geometric boundaries - a circle
with a radius of 30 km whose center is the summit of Gunung Leuser, a
straight line drawn between the summits of Gg Wailebah and Gg Titi Akar,
etc. Such boundary descriptions obviously bare little relation to
ecology or geography. Worse still, the proposed boundaries cross such
forbidding terrain that they are impossible to physically demarcate in
the field.
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Swamps
have, for a long time, held a mysterious allure in the popular
imagination. Some consider them to be the abode of spirits while
most perceive them as dangerous and unfit for human habitation.
The swamps in the tropics are even more greatly feared, and with
some justification, as they can breed diseases such as malaria
and elephantiasis which can be deadly to man, and are often
filled with dangerous animals such as great cats, crocodiles and
giant snakes that can coil around and squeeze the life out of
the unwary. The peat swamps of Indonesia represent 70% of the
world's total for this specialized habitat. But these swamps are
rapidly vanishing as they are logged, drained and, where the
peat is not too deep, converted to agriculture. The drainage
process creates the conditions for uncontrolled fires. In the
great fires that swept through Kalimantan in the 1990s, and
which spread as far as Singapore and Malaysia, some 80% of the
smoke generated was attributed to the burning of peat swamps.
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 In
1985 a visitor to Naca, a small group of huts in Southern Aceh
could awake in the morning to the sounds of untold numbers of
jungle fowl, pheasants, and Firebirds, whose calls echoed
through the galleries of the neighboring forest. By day the
trees would host apes such as orangutans, siamang, and gibbons,
as well as numerous hornbills and flocks of colorful doves.
Toward evening - especially during light rains, tigers could
regularly be seen setting out on a hunt. And at night bullfrogs
would stir the night with their mating calls, and soft shelled
turtles would come out of the submerged hiding places to hunt
and scavenge in the numerous streams. The hamlet of Naca was
situated on a narrow strip of dry land between the northern edge
of the Singkil Swamp and the mountains to the north that formed
the southern watershed of the Bengkung River basin. It was this
intersection of these two very different habitats that probably
gave the area its extraordinary biological richness. This
phenomenon is sometimes referred to as an "edge effect" where
biological richness is greater than either of the neighboring
habitats.
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 PENDIDIKAN
LINGKUNGAN HIDUP
Kawasan Ekosistem Leuser adalah bagian dari wilayah Indo Malaya
Barat
yang tingkat keanekaragaman
hayatinya merupakan salah
satu yang tertinggi
di dunia setelah
Amazon di Brazil dan Zaire di Afrika. Sebagian besar
wilayah kawasan ini terdiri dari hutan hujan tropis. Hutan
hujan tropis tersebut memberikan kontribusi yang sangat besar
bagi kehidupan masyarakat lokal, Indonesia dan dunia terutama
dalam bentuk jasa ekologi seperti penghasil oksigen, pengendali
banjir dan tanah longsor serta suplai air bagi pertanian,
perikanan dan kebutuhan sehari-hari bagi penduduk sekitarnya,
selain juga sebagai sumber tanaman obat, buah-buahan, dan hasil
hutan non kayu lainnya. Berbagai upaya dilakukan untuk
menyelamatkan kawasan ini dari kerusakan akibat ulah manusia
yang tidak bertanggung jawab. Salah satunya adalah melalui jalur
Pendidikan Lingkungan Hidup karena cara ini dianggap
sebagai salah satu cara yang paling efektif untuk membentuk
keluhuran budi masyarakat terutama
siswa sedini mungkin dalam berinteraksi dan bertanggung jawab
untuk melindungi alam lingkungannya.
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