Badui Tribe Oppose Exile of Rhinoceroses

Last week I posted an article regarding Rhinos being removed from the Ujung Kulon National Park in West Java. Now it seems the Badui, a tribe that maintains a primitive existence in West Java, has objected to the plan to relocate them.

The WWF plan was to move the Rhinos to Gunung Halimun in West Java. For the Badui who cling to their spiritual way of life through a strict and loyal adherence to their age-old customs, rhinos, which they call Si Putri (literally means the princess) have a special significance.

A Badui spokesman said that there was no need to relocate the rhinos because they have historical value and spiritual ties with their land. According to him, God placed them there in the beginning and the people should respect his will. He said the Badui people objected to the relocation plan because they feared the endangered species could become extinct.

Just as the Badui treat the rhinos like royalty, they refer to the forest as the kingdom of the impressive mammals. The Badui's beliefs are a blend of Hinduism and animism and they believe in an "upper world" of deities and an "underworld", the Earth.

The Badui people believed moving the rhinos to another place was akin to shifting the universe.

The Javan rhinoceros, one of the most endangered large mammals on earth, is also known as the Asian Lesser One-Horned Rhino. The plan to move the rhinos from the park on the western tip of Java was floated at a gathering of ecological experts in March in Jakarta.

However the WWF has yet to say when the relocation would start. There are fewer than 60 Javan rhinos in the world surviving in only two known locations. The other location is in Vietnam.

The Ujung Kulon park occupies 120,000 hectares of land comprising 76,214 ha of forest and 44,337 ha of marine areas. Some 800 bulls, over 300 species of plants, 30 species of mammals, 21 reptile species, 17 amphibians and hundreds of apes, birds, turtles and other animals also live in the park.