Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park Becomes ASEAN Heritage Park

The park is located in Maros regency, South Sulawesi, some 50 kilometers to the north of Makassar and 20 kilometers from Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport.

The decision to declare the Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park an ASEAN Heritage park was taken during the sixth ASEAN Heritage Park Conference in Pakse, Laos in the end of October this year.

The karst area of the park contains almost 300 caves including 34 prehistoric caves, and a waterfall with two caves – the one kilometre long Dream Cave and the Stone Cave. The park is an important habitat for a number of endangered animals including Sulawesi moor macaque, red-knobbed hornbill, cuscus and Sulawesi palm civet, as well as endemic butterfly species such as Papilio blumei, Papilio polytes, Papilio sataspes and Graphium androcles.  

First explored in 1857 by a British naturalist and explorer Alfred Wallace who then included the description of the region into his The Malay Archipelago work, in 1970–1980 five conservation areas were created there. In 2004, the Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia united 43,750 hectares of Bantimurung-Bulusaurung land for wildlife conservatory, nature park, conservation forest, limited production forest, production forest into the Bantimurung – Bulusaraung National Park.

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