Nature Reserve

Rawa Danau, Nature’s Unsung Reserve

Maybe it is just the fate of those who live next to the famed and eminent to exist in obscurity. How else would one explain the fact that so few have ever heard of the Rawa Danau nature reserve at the western end of West Java?


Without its water, the huge Suralaya power plant on the Sunda Strait would run out of steam and the thriving industrial town of Cilegon in Banten would be doomed to wither. And if ever the water in this unsung reserve should dry up, the island of Java would lose the only hill swamp-forest ecosystem still in existence.

It was in the early morning of a bright, clear day that we arrived at Padarincang, the last village accessible by car on the road from Jakarta towards the reserve. From there on it was a three-hour hike over narrow footpaths, flanked here and there by simple houses, an elementary school, and food stalls. Then, rather abruptly, the land grew more empty. Houses stood abandoned in the stretch where the reserve area began, and old ricefields lay abandoned, overgrown with bushes two to three meters tall, blocking our path. The people had for many years been gone: resettled in more scarcely populated areas outside Java.

At the end of the road there was a wide expanse of marshland. And ahead of us still lay another quarter of an hour of padding in a canoe, which was the only means of transportation available at this point to enter the reserve area proper.

Literally, the name Rawa Danau means “lake of marshes”. The reserve is spread over a valley about 90 meters above sea level. About 2,500 hectares (6,750 acres) large, it was declared a nature reserve in 1921 to protect Java’s even then only remaining mountain swampland forest area.

Severaltimes during the past , farmers hungry for land had tried to reclaim the land from the bogs. That happened in as early as 1835, and again between 1907 and 1910. In 1942, bands of people moved into the reserve and tried to occupy the land. Records compiled in 1983 showed that one-third of the land inside the reserve had been converted into farmland.

Resettling the people to other areas apparently helped, but new problems have since cropped up: water hyacinths (Eichornia crassipes) and other swamp vegetation are proliferating out of control.

Few people have yet realized the lost that has been suffered. Several endemic flora species still flourished, such as Alocasia batamensis and Coix lacryma-jobi l. var Palustris Backer.

But many more are believed to have perished or have been pushed back by intruder species from outside the reserve, such as the tuber Manihot esculenta, sugar canes (Saccharum officinarum), caladium (Colocasia esculenta), and the rice that was initially planted by farmers.

Besides the beauty of its unique vegetation, Rawa Danau also offers a most pleasant environment for bird watchers. The reserve is home to a number of rare bird species, among which are Tulung Tumpuk (barbet, Megalaima javensis), which is endemic to the area, the big raja udang (white colored kingfisher, Halcyon chloris), beo (talking myna, Gracula religiosa), and the elang bondol (brahminy kite, Haliastur indus).

Bird watching in these wilds, though, can have its perilous moments. In our preoccupation with birds, we hardly noticed we had penetrated rather deep into the wastelands until we heard the roar of what must have been a leopard (Panthera pardus) not very far away.

Fortunately nothing more spectacular happened than the passing through the tree branches of groups of monkeys and a flying squirrel (Etaurista elegan) gliding above us with her young clasped to her body. Such rare species, however, have sales value and for that reason they are hunted. In the case of Rawa Danau, the relative obscurity may well be a blessing in disguise. But even as it is, the deterioration of the natural environment inside the reserve is turning it into a less-than-ideal habitat for wildlife.

Meanwhile the population pressure on the reserve area is hardly abating. The relevant question now may be: How long before Java will lose its last more or less intact hilly swamp-forest ecosystem?

For one thing, water hyacinths are slowly taking over. Already, much of the water is covered with floating islands of water hyacinths. As a result, the process of silt forming and sedimentation is accelerating. In due time, all the water will be gone. Perhaps only then will it be realized how serious the impact of the loss of Rawa Danau can be (first published in Voice of Nature, 1990/written by Ika Nurillah Krishnayanti and Christina P. Wulan).