Sumatra, Indonesia Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Mauri RAUTKARI   Indonesia Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   7,000 square miles (18,100 square kilometers) -- about the size of Connecticut and Delaware combined Critical/Endangered

· Sumatra's Swamp Forests
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Sumatra's Swamp Forests

Make your way through the soggy soils of the Sumatra Freshwater Swamp Forests and you'll encounter an extraordinary diversity of life. Asian elephants, monitor lizards, whistling ducks, and Malayan tapirs are just a few of the animals found in these wet forest habitats. Unfortunately, their home is extremely threatened and may be entirely gone within ten years.

Special Features

Isolated patches of freshwater swamp forests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra make up this threatened ecoregion. Overflowing rivers and rainfall regularly inundate the area, so trees here have to endure prolonged periods of flooding. Some have buttresses, some have stilt roots, and some have structures on their roots called pneumatophores that aid in respiration when oxygen is in short supply. A wide variety of soil makes it possible for a diversity of vegetation types to grow here, including grassy marshes, palm forests, and lowland rain forests.

	The gharial, similar to the more common false gharial, has a longer and thinner snout than most crocodiles. This is a very rare species, and hunters seek out the animals for their tough hides.

Wild Side

These forests are home to numerous primates, including long-tailed macaques, pig-tailed macaques, and siamangs--Sumatra's largest species of gibbon. Squirrels zip up and down the trees. Estuarine crocodiles and false gharials rest in the rivers. Clouded leopards pad through the night. And about 100 of Sumatra's 500 remaining Sumatran tigers inhabit the Gunung Leuser National Park in the northern part of the country. Swampy grasslands and forests also provide important habitat for many waterbirds, including herons, egrets, pond herons, pygmy geese, lesser adjutants, milky storks, and rare white-winged wood ducks.

Cause for Concern

Less than one-fifth of the original natural habitat remains in this severely threatened ecoregion. Because the soils are very fertile, they've been developed for agriculture. Large-scale logging, much of it illegal, has occurred throughout the region. Several large fires have destroyed whole blocks of forest. And hunting of estuarine crocodiles and false gharials--both out of fear and for their skins--has decimated their populations. The mugger, another species of crocodile from this ecoregion, is now thought to be extinct due to overexploitation.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.