Meru Betiri National Park

After a 30 km very rough road which crosses half a dozen rivers through dense jungle and a rubber plantation, you finally arrive here on the southeastern tip of the province, where the last of the Javanese tigers had sought refuge. A hundred and fifty years ago Javanese tigers inhabited most of Java and was even considered a nuisance in some populated areas. But through the 1800s and early 1990s it was hunted mercilessly and its habitat destroyed by plantation builders.

By the beginning of the Second World War it survived only in the most remote mountains and forests, and today, the last four or five live on the brink of extinction in a remote region.

The government and the World Wildlife Fund have mounted a determined effort to save the tigers and their environment. And to do so, the authorities are even prepared to relocate a few thousand humans. But Meru Betiri is not simply a tiger reserve. Wildlife of all kinds abounds, like black panthers, leopards and turtles.