Lorentz National Park

Lorent national park is one of the mainstay tourism destination in Papua. This national is the biggest national park in South-East Asia, with estimated 25.000 km2 area. It’s exactly located on Paniai region, Fak Fak sub district, Merauke – Papua province. Since this national park was officially established on 1997, UNESCO has put this national park into UNESCO heritage site by 1999 and become one of ASEAN Nature Heritage Site.

Lorentz National Park is representative of the complete ecosystem for biodiversity in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific. Uniquely, this national park is also one among the three regions in the world that have glaciers in the tropics. In this section, tourist can see and unique presence in the Puncak Jaya glaciers and rivers that disappeared several kilometers into the ground in the Valley Balliem. It stretches from snow-capped mountain peaks (5030 m asl), to stretch out to the coastal waters with mangrove forests and borders the Arafura Sea waters. In this stretch, there is a spectrum of ecological stunning alpine vegetation of the region, sub-alpine, montane, sub-montane, lowland, and wetlands.

This national park consist of 34 types of vegetation including forest sago, mountain forest, swamp forest, peat forest, rain forest land flat/ slope river, coral and beaches,  rain forest on the hill, heath forest, grasslands and lichens. There are several species of flora in Lorentz National Par, they are Mangrove ( Rhizophora apiculata ), Pandanus julianettii, Palm ( Nypa fruitcans ), Colocasia Esculenta, Avicennia marina, Nauclea Coadunata, etc.

The national park also function as the wildlife and animal protection. Lorentz national park at least consist of 123 species of mammals and 630 species of birds, which is representative 70% of Papua endemic. The mammals are included 4 species of cuscus, jungle cat, pig snout short spines ( Tachyglossus Aculeatus ), tree kangaroos and wallabies. Meanwhile, the endemic birds in this national park consist of 2 species of cassowaries, 4 megapodes, 31 species of virgin/ pigeons, 30 species of parrots, 13 species of bird shrimp, 29 species of honey bird, 20 endemic species of long-tailed paradise ( Paradigalla Caruneulata ) and quail snow ( anurophasis monorthonyx ).