Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau - Sumatra

Tesso Nilo National Park is a national park in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. It was declared a national park by the Indonesian government in 2004. The original area of the park was 38.576 km², but the decision has been made to expand it to 1000 km². Tesso Nilo National Park houses some of the largest coherent lowland rainforests remaining on Sumatra.

The Center for Biodiversity Management has surveyed over 1,800 plots in tropical forests around the world. They found that no other plot has as many vascular plants as in Tesso Nilo. Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) surveyed forests throughout Sumatra, and also found that Tesso Nilo housed by far the most species.

Flora and fauna

Endangered Sumatran Elephants and critically endangered Sumatran Tigers and Sumatran Orangutans live here.

Foreign aid

The Belgian government will provide 200,000 euros in assistance for the construction of a Sumatran elephant conservation center in the Tesso Nilo National Park (TNTN), the first stages of 50,000 euros would be disbursed for 2011. The project will move dozens of tame elephants to join with about 100 wild elephants in Minas to TNTN in anticipation of unexpected things between the elephants and the people around TNTN due to the current location was considered no longer suitable as forest areas there had been changed into oil palm plantations and oil mining sites.