On the front lines of conservation in Sumatra: Rangers safeguard Batutegi forest
TANGGAMUS, Indonesia — For more than a decade and a half, forest ranger Wandi Harmoko has walked the ridges and valleys of Batutegi, a landscape in southern Sumatra. He is one of only a handful of officers tasked with patrolling almost 60,000-hectares (148,300 acres) of forest that is not only ecologically significant but also economically […]
TANGGAMUS, Indonesia — Forest ranger Wandi Harmoko has dedicated over a decade and a half to protecting the forest of Batutegi in southern Sumatra, covering nearly 60,000 hectares of ecologically significant land that also holds economic value for Lampung province. Despite decades of disturbance due to encroachments, the forest still harbors endangered wildlife, including Sumatran tigers, siamang, pangolins, slow lorises, and sun bears.
Wandi, who leads a small team of rangers, faces the challenge of balancing the protection of the forest with the need to arrest encroachers. The survival of these species in Batutegi depends on a delicate collaboration between a limited number of rangers, advanced monitoring systems, and local farmers whose livelihoods are intrinsically linked to the landscape.
Wandi expressed his inner conflict when Mongabay interviewed him after a day patrol inside Batutegi’s core zone, highlighting the struggle between enforcing the law and understanding human circumstances.
Written by urgent.news from Mongabay's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
