In the late 1990s, part of the community in Tangkahan still made a living from illegal logging in the forests of Gunung Leuser National Park. Since 2001, however, the community and the park authority have developed conservation based ecotourism as a new source of income. Many former loggers became tour guides, forest rangers, and nature tourism entrepreneurs.
The result: the forest remains intact and is a vital habitat for the Sumatran elephant, orangutan, tiger, and Sumatran rhino. Tangkahan is proof that when conservation brings economic benefit to a community, the people who once depended on felling the forest can become its foremost protectors.
