Deforestation at Gunung Pancar

The Gunung Pancar (Taman Wisata Alam Gunung Pancar) is my favorite trail running location. It is close to Jakarta, with lots of great trails covered with trees - running in the shade of pine trees in tropical Indonesia feels great. This afternoon I ran on my old trail around Gunung Pancar and discovered significant deforestation at the area. Also, when I got there, two trees surrounded by the new plantation were set on fire:

Meanwhile, beside setting trees on fire, this guy was busy chopping down nearby trees - you can see his face clearly on zoom:

He didn't like that I put out the fire, so I fled before he showed up near me with his machete:

This area is owned by Forestry Department (Departemen Kehutanan) and this activity is illegal, but nobody seems to bother. The trees visible on Google Earth are no longer there and it looks like pine trees at Gunung Pancar will soon be gone, replaced with illegal plantations. Meanwhile, people responsible for guarding this area do not appear to be doing much beside collecting the money for entrance to the park.

But, not everything is lost. Few kilometers from the place with burning trees, I found Eco Edu Forest that appears to be sponsored by PT Astra International with 130 trees planted:

This Eco Edu Forest is located here. They also installed warning sign informing about potential 10 years jail time for chopping down trees:

Big thank you Astra International! Here you can read more about their CSR project. As you can see on my photos, this project is real and really important. I really appreciate this eco contribution from Astra International.

Garuda vs Lion Air

One of the reasons I don't fly with Lion Air:

Wonderful Indonesia

The 2012 Wonderful Indonesia promotion video "Feeling is Believing " is indeed really wonderful:

I also like this video:

I also found this little gem on YouTube:

Overall, great job Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy! Looking forward to 2013 videos, keep up the good work.

Tree ferns of Java (Cyathea)

Photos of Cyathea tree ferns I took on a trail run around Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia):

Tree ferns do not form new woody tissue in their trunk as they grow. Rather, the trunk is supported by a fibrous mass of roots that expands as the tree fern grows.

More info about Cyathea on this site.

Privacy in Indonesia

Anyone living in Indonesia will soon realise that the concept of privacy is not very well understood within the Indonesian society. Here's one interesting example, of a prepaid SIM-card registration process:

The registration process includes question "Are you a smoker? [Apakah Anda Perokok?]" It is not possible to skip this question. I think most of westerners would be really surprised to see such question - why the hell mobile operator needs to know if I'm smoking?!?!?! - and would not be happy to have to answer to it, but it is perfectly normal in Indonesia.

Gunung Pancar

I took a few photos from one of my favorite spots around Gunung Pancar, featuring Gunung Pancar (left) and Gunung Salak (center):

This is how the same view looks in Google Earth - it's pretty close actually:

It's possible to see Jakarta from here, but unfortunately due to high humidity and pollution, I can never see it clearly - I'm still waiting for the right conditions to take a better photo:

 Sentul seen from the same spot:

In case you want to visit yourself, I mapped all these photos on Panoramio.