The People

Most of Ujung Kulon National Park has always been a wilderness and only last century was described as 'a place desolate and frightening, never trodden by Javanese' however, isolated comunities were once established along the shorelines and its waters have provided shelter and food for early mariners for many centuries.

According the local legends and records, possibly the earliest settlement was made on Panaitan Island in the 1500's by a community of Hindus or Buddhists fleeing conversion to the Islamic faith. All that now remain are a bathing site and two statue on the very summit of Gunung Raksa, one of which is an unusual carving of Ganesha, the elephant-like son of Shiva.

Two centuries later on the 6th of January 1771, the famous English explorer James Cook anchored off Panaitan Island in search of food and water for the sick crew. His botanist Joseph Banks visited a town on the island called Samadang. It contained three hundred houses built on high pillars and many were in ruins. These Islamic inhabitants spoke Sundanese and said that they had originally come from the mountains of West Java.

In 1808 attention was first focused on Ujung Kulon when the Dutch Govenor-General proposed a naval port in the waters between Peucang Island and the Ujung Kulon Peninsula. The sultan of Banten was ordered to provide the workers but because of diseases and political unrest the naval port was abandoned. Instead it became a prison site for captured local pirates supporting the Sultan against the Dutch.

By the 1850's expeditions were exploring Ujung Kulon. They praised its resorces and wrote: 'Java's western corner does in truth seem destined to become an important place...' However, they believed its value would be as center of trade and commerce. But nature intervened and at 10.00 am on August 21, 1883, after a day of violent thunder stroms and ashest of rain, the erupting volcanoe Krakatau sent a largest of a series of tidal waves to decimate the shores of Ujung Kulon. This wave reached height of up to 30 meters, travelled as far as 10 km. inland and devastated the coasts of Sunda Straits killing 36.000 people. Only the areas of the Ujung Kulon coastline sheltered by Panaitan and Peucang Island were saved from the full impact of the Tsunami.

At that time were three small villages containing 120 people in the Peucang region and most of the people survived by fleeing to the Tanjung Layar lighthouse. During the height of the eruption the lighthouse keeper wrote in his morning log: ' at 9 o'clock weather becoming worse, completely dark banged open and lightening hit the building... wounding for of ten convicts....heavy thunder and earthquakes..'

Just a decade later there were again forty houses at what was then called Djungkulan with a small settlement across the channel of Peucang Island and other at Cibunar and Kalejetan on the south coast. These villages were evacuated at the beginning of the 1900's It was said to be because of illness and 'plagues of tigers' but the true reason was probably to set aside the area as a nature reserve.

The Sundanese

Around the Gunung Honje Range live the people of the region, the Sundanese of south-west Banten. These 42.000 inhabitants who speak a dialect of the Sundanese language, live in numerous villages kampung outside the eastern boundary of the park.

With live based on their traditional culture,90% of the local people still live off the land and the sea using age old methods. Their staple rice diet is supplement by corn, sweet potatoes, cassava, beans and cucumber crops and tropical fruits like bananas, rambutan, mangosteen, jambu and the highly appreciated durian. Cloves and coconut are sold elsewhere to bring money into the comunities. The villagers also raise oxen, goats, sheep, ducks, geese and chicken and collect wild honey and palm sap. Sundanese society is based upon large extended families who provide support and assistance within the family. The saying ' whether we eat or not, as long as we are together' prevails as family relationships are very strong. Mutual co operation gotong-royong extends beyon the family throughout the whole comunity and may aspect of their live depends upon comunity assistance in agriculture, building, community projects, boat repairs, guarding of the village and numerous ceremonies and celebrations.

These good natured, friendly people are very devout followers of the Islamic religion yet retain many of the customs, traditions and culture of their ancestors, An example of this is found in the Debus performance when dancers prove their mental strenght and invulnverability with mystical feats. The Sundanese of Banten are regarded with some awe in Indonesian society because of these supernatural abilities.

There are places in the park that are of special religious or spiritual significance and the most notable are the caves of Sanghiang Sirah on the far south-west tip of Ujung Kulon Peninsula. To these caves come pilgrims, particularly from the Cirebon area of central Java, who travel and walk many days through the park to gain the blesing and good fortune of the early spiritual leaders Prabu Siliwangi, Prabu Tajimalela and Nyi Mas Mayangsari.

The local people still practice a code of conduct when in the forests. These include not eating while walking, always being seated on leaves, no whistling or idle conversations, never mentioning the actual name for a tiger, only using knives to cut vegetation, only urinating while sitting, not travelling after twilight and when sleeping in the forest everyone being regarded as of equal status. It is believed the if these customs are not followed then people are indistingushable from animals and their spirit world and that there maybe unfortunate consequences.

Challenges

Until this century, when Ujung Kulon became a reserve and the a national park, it was the hunting, fishing and gathering grounds for these comunities and although they are still able to collect forest produce in the park's buffer zone area, agriculture, hunting and fishing are ilegal inside the park. One of the greatest challanges in the conservation of Ujung Kulon National park is to educate the park's neighbours about the need for protecting the forest nd wildlife and to gain the support of local comunities. In the villages around Ujung Kulon education programmes are run by the park staff and several organizations are involved in finding alternative resources and incomes. These projects include tourist accomodation, bee keeping, re-afforestation, water supplies and local craft production.

The present and future challanges to the park involve not only the local people. There is garbage and refuse from the citis that float south on the currents smothering the marine life and wash up on Ujung Kulon's shores. There is also the poaching of marine life by fishermen, often from far distant regions, as well as the preserving a national park almost entirely involve educating and managing people, for if the park was left in solitude its wildlife. forests and the marine life would survive in nature's harmony.

Ujung Kulon National Park

Introduction | The Land | Plant Life | Wild Life | Marine Life | The People | Attractions | Map Ujung Kulon