Bukit Lawang & Gunung Leuser National Park

Gunung Leuser National Park was established in 1980 and covers a large area of northern Sumatra, mostly in Aceh with the rest in North Sumatra. In 2004 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Kerinci Seblat and Bukit Barisan Selatan national parks as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, which has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2011 because of threats such as encroachment and road building.

Bukit Lawang grew up around an orangutan rehabilitation centre opened in 1973 to care for animals orphaned by hunting, trade and deforestation and return them to the forest. On 2 November 2003 a flash flood, which local authorities and environmental groups linked to illegal logging, destroyed much of the village and killed more than 200 people. With international help the village was rebuilt and reopened in July 2004. The rehabilitation work has since ended, and the orangutans living around Bukit Lawang today are released animals, their descendants and wild orangutans.

Bukit Lawang is a village in Bahorok district, and tourism is now one of the main sources of income alongside plantations and small farms. Around 300 local guides work here, some trained through the Indonesian guides' association (HPI), and they report to the national park management before taking groups into the forest. The village has mosques and local warung serve Indonesian dishes, and weekends bring domestic visitors from Medan, Binjai and Aceh who come mainly for picnics and river tubing.