- Tesso Nilo National Park was created to protect one of the largest remaining tracts of lowland forest on the island of Sumatra, and as a refuge for threatened wildlife such as critically endangered Sumatran tigers and elephants.
- Despite being declared a National Park in 2004 and expanded in 2009, Tesso Nilo has experienced continued deforestation in recent years, largely driven by the proliferation of oil palm plantations.
- Satellite data show Tesso Nilo lost 78% of its old growth rainforest between 2009 and 2023.
- Preliminary data for 2024, coupled with satellite imagery, show continued forest loss this year.
When the Indonesian government established Tesso Nilo National Park in 2004 on a former logging concession, little could it have known that the legacy of logging and deforestation would continue years after granting it official protection. The park, which was expanded in 2009, now covers more than 80,000 hectares of land in Sumatra’s Riau province, and is one of the last tracts of lowland forest blocks that remains on the island.
Tesso Nilo National Park is home to nearly 3% of the world’s mammals, according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – Indonesia, including the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) and the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), both critically endangered. It also boasts more than 4,000 plant species within its borders — one of the highest levels of lowland plant diversity in the world.
However, for decades since its designation of a national park, Tesso Nilo has experienced unabated deforestation, driven by illegal logging, establishment of palm oil plantations within the national park, and encroachments in the form of villages. A 2018 investigation from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that nearly three-fourths of Tesso Nilo is converted into palm oil plantations, and related deforestation has continued to destroy primary forest in the park.
Satellite data from monitoring platform Global Forest Watch (GFW) show Tesso Nilo lost 78% of its primary forest cover between 2009 and 2023. And preliminary data for 2024 indicate clearing activities are continuing to gobble up what scant forest remains in the park.
Google Timelapse shows how the forests in and around Tesso Nilo National Park have disappeared over time.
Research indicates the driving force of deforestation in Tesso Nilo is conversion for oil palm plantations. A 2013 report found that two of the world’s largest palm oil companies purchased palm fruit grown within the national park boundaries. In 2018, there were more than 150 oil palm plantations inside the national park, according to government figures, and nearly 100 plantations in the adjacent logging concession.
“But at the same time the price of palm oil has surged and this became a lure to open land for oil palm planting primarily at a time when job conditions are difficult,” Yuliantony told Mongabay in 2022. Yuliantony, who goes by one name, is the executive director of the Tesso Nilo National Park Foundation.
While the international commodity price of palm oil has receded from a peak in 2022, it has been climbing steadily in 2024 and sat at a 2.5-year high as of the date this story was published.
Roads that accompany plantation development also open up forests for poachers pursuing wildlife. Satellite imagery from Planet Labs visualized on GFW shows roads snaking between cleared areas and through remaining forest in Tesso Nilo.
The impact on Tesso Nilo’s wildlife is evident. Riau Province contains Sumatra’s second-largest Sumatran elephant population, but between 2015 and 2020, 24 elephants were found dead in the park and in other Riau protected areas, reportedly due to gunshots, snares, poisoning and other human causes.
Government agencies and conservation organizations say there may be fewer than 1,000 Sumatran elephants living in the wild today, and that there may be less than a decade to stabilize populations before extinction is inevitable.
Banner image of Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) by Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay.
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