Berbak National Park

Translated by Dimas Adika

Administratively, Berbak National Park is located on two regencies namely East Tanjung Jabung and Muaro Jambi regency.  Geographically, this area located in 1°08’41 - 1°40’16” south latitude and 104°15’29” - 104°15’53” east longitude.

This area has been  stated into wildlife reserve under Dutch colonial law in Staatsblad Van Nederlanch, No. 18, 29 October 1935, with the large is 190.000Ha. Then in 1992, Indonesia forestry minister has  officially declared as National Park with the decision letter No.285/Kpts-II/1992, with the large is 162.700Ha.
In 1991 when  wetland convention that has been held in Ramsar  (Iran), the international world agrre  this Berbak wetland has potency and uniqueness, so that it joined in one of the international wetland protection site (RAMSAR SITE)

Accessibilty
To reach Berbak National Park area, you can use either land or water transporation with destinations as follow:
From-to                                       By                              Time             Price
Jambi-Suak Kandis                     Car                             1 hour             30.000
Suak Kandis-Air Hitam dalam Speedboat (rent)         1 hour             250.000
Suak Kandis-Nipah Panjang Speedboat (rent)          1,5 hours        250.000
                                                   Speedboat                   1,5 hours       35.000
Jambi-Nipah Panjang                  Speedboat                    2,5 hours       60.000
Nipah Panjang-Air Hitam Laut Speedboa (rent)           2 hours           750.000
Air Hitam Laut-Cemara Beach Speedboat(rent)           30 minutes     200.000


Fauna
Mammals
There are 28 Mamals speciecs found in this area, some of them are threatened with extinction like Sumatera tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Macan Dahan (Neofelis nebulosa), (tapirus indicus), (cervus unicolor), Kijang (Muntiacus muntjak), Beruang Madu (Helarctos malayanus), Trenggiling(Manis javanicus), Kancil (Tragulus javanicus), Tupai terbang merah (Petaurista petaurista), Landak (hystix brachyura), Kera ekor panjang (Macaca fascicularis),Lutung (Presbytis cristata), Siamang (symphalangus sydactylus), and Wau-wau (Hylobates agilis).

Reptiles and amphibians
In this area,  many reptiles and amphibians found. For example, Tuntong (Batagur basca), Turtle (Ortilia boornensis), Phyton (Bolga dendropil and Bungarius fascitus) and two kinds of crocodile that almost extinct namely Muara crocodile (Crocodilus porosus) and Sinyulong crocodile (Tomistoma schelegeli)

Pisces
Rivers in this area are rich with various fishes.  There are 35 species of fish which are consumable. There is also 1 very commercial fish from white variety of Arwana (Sceleropaghes formosus). Other kinds of fishes are like Belido (Notopetrus notopetrus), betok (anabas testudinus) and Tapa (Walago niostonis). Macrognatus and Juara (Pangasius micronema) can be found in the estuary of rivers.

Aves
Some kinds of the birds in this area are like Mentok Rimba (Cairina scutulata), Bangau Strom (Ciconia stormi), Bangau Tontong (Leptoptilos javanicus), Kuntul putih (Mycteria cinerea), Rangkong/Enggang (Buceros sp), some kinds of Pekakak (Alcedinedae), Murai batu (Copsychus malabaricus), and Cucak hijau (Chloropsis sonnerati).
This area is also the anually stopover  from  migrant shore birds, in Cemara beach especially. The kinds of those migrant birds are like Gegajahan (Numeneus pheopus) and Trinil tutul (Tringa guttifer).

Flora
Orchidae
Berbak National Park has much flora potency. One of them is forest orchid. In this area, there are 25 kinds of forest orchid. Some of them are Gramatophyllum speciousm, Cologyne asperata, vanda hoekeriana, Bulbophyllum purpurescens, Rhyncostylis retusa, Coelegyne spp, and Flickingeria fimbrata.
Palmae
You can find many kinds of palm in this area. For example Pinang merah (Cystotachys spp), Palem kipas Sumatera (Livistona spp), Palem Sumatera (Nenga Gajah), Nibung (Onchosperma tigillarium), Nipah (Nypa fruticans), Rotan (Calamus spp).
Nephentecceae
About  6 Nephentes species are in Berbak National Park, namely Nephentes ampullaria, Nephentes gracilis, Nephentes mirabilis, Nephentes raflesiana, Nephentes  neglecta and Nephentes xhookeriana. This plant has the uniqueness in its pocket, its function is to catch insect as food.
Commercial timber-producing plants
Some kinds of plants that have high ecomonomical value as follow: Ramin (Gonistyluus bancanus), Meranti (Shorea spp), Punak (Tetramerista glabra), Kempas (Koompassia malaccensis), Kulim (Scorodocarpus borneensis), Rengas (Gluta renghas), Tembesu Rawa (Fragrea sumatrana), Petaling (Onchanostachys  amentacea), Bintangur (Calophyllum inophyllum), Gerunggang (Cratoxylon arborescens).
Medicinal plants
Some kinds of plants which are usually used to be traditional medicine by the people around Berbak National Park are Jelutung (Dyera lowii), Nipah (Nypa fruticans), Pedada (Sonneratia, sp) and Lengkuas Hutan (Alpinia galanga)



Places should be visited

Air Hitam Dalam
Air Hitam Dalam is one of the easiest entrance gate to reach  from capital province to  Berbak National Park.  It just takes 3 hours to reach this. The activities you can do in this place are:


-Cultural  tour
Before arriving to Air Hitam Dalam (Sungai Aur village to be exact), there is one cultural site namely  funeral complex of Jambi Malay king, Orang Kayo Hitam. He has high influence in the development history of Jambi province
-Nature tour
Some nature tour activity in this national park are like going along the river by boat and observing wildlife

-Research
This site is rich with natural resources and just some of them are identifed. It is the challenging place to the researcher.
Photo: Air Hitam Dalam river condtion

Air Hitam Laut
It needs 4 hours by boat to reach this place from the capital province. Air Hitam Laut is watershed that gives the big influence to the ecosystem formation process in this national park. It is the vegetation formation transition place on the edge of river from  upstream to downstream. Started from the formation of lowland forest vegetation (upstream), Rasau formation, Nipah formation, and coastal forest formation. The activities you can do in this place are:

-Cultural tour
There is a small museum collected stuffs from World War II that found around this national park. Besides, there is an annual event from local community namely Mandi Safar ceremony.
-Nature tour
You can go along the river to see the transition of vegetation formation while enjoying the diversity of forest orchid and observing wildlife.
-Research
This location has been made as initiation carbon research center in cooperation with Zooligycal Society of London (ZSL).


Cemara Beach
It takes 1 hour to reach from Air Hitam Laut. In this location you can see  the attraction from thousand of birds that fly in the sky, making unique formation. These birds are from northern part of the world that do migration to southern past to get food. It is due to in northern part of the world is winter, so that  difficult to get food. This is one of the favourite place when doing migration.


Berhala Island
One of the island in the northern part of Berbak National Park is should be visited. Besides the beauty of the island, you even can see the remnant of World War II like mortar and cannon. There is a cemetery of oneof  most influence person in Jambi, Datuk Paduka Berhala, one of the king in Jambi Malay kingdom. Because of this cemetry, it is then called Berhala island.

Miracle of Prophet Muhammad SAW, The split of moon.

This picture shows the location of the "Rocky Belt" which shows the moon was once split. 

The unbelievers of Makkah said to the prophet that if you are truly a prophet split the moon and if you do we shall believe. It was a full moon that night...And so the prophet prayed to Allah to grant him this miracle, and the moon was split. Half was seen over Mount. Saffa, and the other half was seen over Mount. Kaikaan. 

The people said that the prophet has placed a spell on us, however if he played a trick on us, then he cant play a trick on all the people in the world! Abu Jahl then said: "let us wait until the people of Albadiah come, and if they saw the moon split, then it is true, if not then we all know it was a trick of magic. When the people of Albadiah came they said that they too saw the moon split, and the disbelievers said "oh, how powerful Mohammad's magic is!" 

Then Allah revealed Surat al Qamar: "The hour has come near and the moon has split, and when they see a sign, they turn and say 'this is a continuous magic' and they disbelieved and followed their desires..." 

This took place in the days of the prophet Muhammad in Makkah 

In one of Dr. Zaghlool Al-Najaar's seminars, in one of the British universities said: "The miracle of the plitting of the moon has been proven recently"... " One of the British brothers who is very concerned about the state of Islam "Dawood Musa" who is the new chairman of the british muslims party who is planning to enter the coming elections under the banner of islam, which is spreading extremely fast in the west said "While he was searching for a religion, a friend gave him a copy of the Quran translated in english. He opened it and came across surat Al-Qamar and read "The hour has come and the moon has split", looking at this he said 'The moon has split?!' He then stopped reading and did not open it again. 

Then one day while whatching a program on the BBC, The broadcaster was talking with three American scientists, and the broadcaster was blaming America for spending billons of dollars on space projects, in a time where millions of people are suffering from poverty. 

The scientists were trying to explain why it is important to go into space exploration 

Soon the scientists came to discuss the most expensive trip to the moon, which costed about 100 billion dollars, so the broadcaster asked them "So to put the American flag on the moon you spent this much internal structure of the moon to see what similarities it has with the Earth, and they said that they were surprised to find a 'Belt of Rocks' that goes from the surface of the moon right to the inner depths. 

Being quite surprised, they gave this information to their geologists, who were also surprised, as they concluded that this couldn't be unless the moon was once split and resealed. The rocks on the belt are a result of the impact during the time that the two halves of the moon recombined. 

Watching this brother Dawood Mussa jumped off his seat screaming "This is Muhammad's miracle which occurred more than 1400 years ago, and now the Americans are spending billions of dollars to prove it to the Muslims. He then said "This must surely be a true religion, and so, where once Surat Al-Qamar was a cause for him disbeleiving in Islam, it was now the reason for his embracing Islam... 

Source: http://www.forumpakistan.com/miracle-of-prophet-muhammadpbuh-moon-split-t27099.html#ixzz1vzfIAZOf