Welcome to Berbak National Park, Jambi Province

It was a nice but super hot sunny day, we arrived in Sultan Thaha airport in Jambi, Sumatera around 1.00 pm. The airport is not that big but so crowded with people. We were fully loaded with over baggage and We had to pay for 50 kg extra baggage when we were checked in Soekarno-Hatta airport, around 19,000 IDR per kg which is not bad. We then hired a car to drop us at Hotel Sovia, close to BKSDA office in Jalan Arif Rahman Hakim, Jambi.

We went to Berbak NP office in Jambi which is unfortunately quite far from our hotel. Luckily Medi has friends here who are studying in Jambi university. They drove us to the national park office, 20 minutes from hotel by motor cycle. We arrived at 3.15 pm. At least we still had time for meeting with the head of the national park and several staffs to talk about our project for Turtles Conservation.

Me Vs Wild (Sumatran Tiger)

They are very welcomed and gave us information we need. However, we cannot go to the park because we haven't got the SIMAKSI, an entry permit to conservation areas. So we'll just to wait for the permit to be approved by PHKA (Ministry of Forestry) in Jakarta. But before go to the field, we need to give a presentation about our turtle project in the NP's office and hopefully we will get all the information we need to make a plan for this trip.

Based on the information we gathered during the meeting, we probably go to the park using the speed boat from Jambi to Air hitam village, the last village before the national park. From there we will use another boat to the park and stay in a camp which were built by ZSL for Sumatran Tiger Conservation program. The camp is located in the junction of two rivers that we could use for the turtle survey. These rivers also become the traditional fishing zone for local people. They use big bubus to trap the big fish, and sometime they catch soft shell turtle accidentally inside the bubu (fish trap made by bamboo or rattan), based on the park rangers' report. This is a good information for us, at least there is a good opportunity to catch turtles or soft shell turtles in this national park. But, of course, these rivers also home for salt water crocodile and false gharials crocodile and also Sumatran tiger!!, so we better not to risk our life for these turtles.

In the last meeting, I had a chance to get a picture of me and a dry preservation of Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatraensis) in the Head of Balai TN Berbak's office. The tiger was found dead due the electric fence that local people use to keep away of these big cat from their villages. Sadly, this tiger has to die for the sake of the locals' safety. It might be better if they use unharmed methods to keep the safety both human and the wildlife.