Ethical and Responsible Jungle Trekking

Ethical jungle trekking represents a significant advancement and predominates relevant keywords on Google and other search engines, mostly undertaken by visitors with a heightened understanding of ethical tourism practices. SUMECO maintains its emphasis on ecotourism, a nature-centric tourism model designed to aid in the preservation of the natural environment and conservation of local wildlife, typically characterized by minimal impact, while also facilitating contributions to conservation and environmental education.

The growing human population, makes it more difficult for the low human resource countries to provide sustainable jobs for their own people. Sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world, located in Indonesia, with an area of ​​473,481 km². The population living on this island is around 59,977,438 people (2023 census). Deforestation in Sumatra, is often regarded as a common consequence of the expansion of the palm oil business, approved by the government to promote economic growth. This is the biggest challenge for Sumatra’s tropical rainforests to maintain their protected status. Realistically, based on the field study that SUMECO has conducted since 2010, we cannot deny that only the tourism industry is capable of slowing down the expansion of the palm oil plantation industry.

The negative environmental impacts of tourism are not more substantial compared to the massive organized deforestation in Sumatra. Tourism may often put pressure on natural resources through over-consumption, often in places where resources are already scarce, but it’s not going to be worse than the deforestation that conducted by abandoned people due to poverty and over-consumption by massive mining, logging, and palm oil industries that created more polution and enviromental damages.

We admit the environmental impacts of tourism have gained increasing attention in recent years. Positively, responsible traveller and educated people begin to pay more attention to sustainable tourism and an increased number of initiatives for being environmentally friendly, tourists and stakeholders alike are now recognizing the importance of environmental management in the tourism industry.

1. Must exhibit warmth and convey excitement.
2. Must consistently demonstrate a commitment to provide exceptional assistance and high-quality service to all visitors, while affording them the chance to experience or visit their selected destinations.
3. Shall not discriminate in providing services to any tourist on any grounds, including but not limited to color, gender, ethnicity, nationality, physical disability, age, etc.
4. Must be neutral, unbiased, and constructive, representing his/her nation objectively.
5. Must be appropriately attired and presentable at all times.
6. Must consistently exhibit punctuality, reliability, honesty, conscientiousness, and tactfulness.
7. Must be a responsible driver while operating vehicles.
8. Shall execute the tour program/itinerary to the best of his/her ability and remain loyal to the company/organization he/she represents.
9. Will address disagreement with sensitivity and responsibility.
10. Must notify any event of injury or fatality to the nearest tourism authority or police station.
11. Must possess expertise and guide travelers without disseminating inaccurate information.
12. In the case of unfamiliarity with or inability to supply required information to a tourist, one must seek the competent authorities for help.
13. Must never be under the influence of alcohol or narcotic substances while on duty and must abstain from providing any medicine to a client without appropriate medical advice.
14. Shall refrain from soliciting clients or gratuities.
15. Must always prioritize the safety of the visitor.
16. Must do the requisite tourist guide badge and possess his/her registration card.
17. Will regard all individuals, cultures, and the environment with respect.

SUMECO is still learning and continuing to learn. We have been involved in the world of conservation since 2012, but we are still learning and have not dared to claim that we are able to do ethical and responsible jungle trekking openly due to much bigger and more complex problems with human resources in Indonesia. This is what motivates us to continue trying to reduce the impact of environmental damage and improve the intelligence of local communities. According to the World Population Review 2024 report, the average IQ of Indonesians is 78.49. This figure places Indonesia in 129th place out of 197 countries tested. We cannot deny that a country’s human resources play a significant role in determining its environmental conditions.

Internally, SUMECO always strives to implement discipline in every SUMECO volunteer and worker who is particularly involved in ecotourism and animal rescue conservation programs. We always strive to ensure that tour guides working for SUMECO have the ideology of conservation and responsible and sustainable tourism. This is an absolute requirement in creating ethical tourism. SUMECO is also happy to receive opinions and criticisms that can build SUMECO to become better, because the better SUMECO’s ecotourism business is, the more animals will be saved. It is important to remember that SUMECO uses its company profits to carry out its animal rescue missions. As our hope to be known as a tour company that contributes directly to animal rescue in Sumatra, Indonesia.

SUMECO always argues that it will be very difficult to implement ethical jungle trekking if the jungle trekking location is still in the in-situ zone, but after seeing how much forest damage and hunting of wild animals in the in-situ zone outside the ecotourism area, SUMECO can accept that economic conditions and human resources play an important role in conservation. It will be extremely challenging to discuss conservation when the indigenous community, residing on the borders of national parks, continues to struggle with poverty and hunger.

We recognize that visitors are excited to view orangutans, but we also know that conducting jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang, particularly in Gunung Leuser National Park, which is home to a variety of wildlife, requires ethics that adhere to scientific norms. As a Bukit Lawang-based animal rescue organization, SUMECO would feel terrible if we did not follow ethical tourism norms when going on a jungle trek to see orangutans and other wildlife in Gunung Leuser National Park. It has frequently been discovered that there are very serious occurrences and virals on social media concerning various job accidents and orangutan assaults on tourists caused by:

1. Too close to view and observe the orangutans.
2. Ignoring the irresponsible guides who feed animals in the jungle during the trekking for the sake of seeing them closely.
3. Making unnecessary noise, such as yelling, to attract animals.
4. Littering.
5. Not being permitted to access the National Park.

The matters above must still be our shared responsibility to create a professional, ethical, and responsible working atmosphere. SUMECO-made Bukit Lawang Ecotourism was established to change things that are still considered deviant and wrong. We also still need to learn to improve the quality of work in the jungle during the trekking trip. SUMECO always provides orangutan viewing trekking options with extremely minimal potential to disrupt the comfort of animals in the jungle, such as:

1. Limit your jungle trekking duration in the jungle to no more than three days. In general, animals who live farther into the jungle will be disturbed because they have not acclimated to human movement, but creatures near the hiking trail have already adapted to human activity since Bukit Lawang did not exist.

2. Daily jungle treks linking Bukit Lawang with non-touristy places such as Tualang Gepang or fruit farms on the park’s edges will have a significant positive influence on farmers who frequently confront human-orangutan conflicts.

It is very important to ask what contribution they have made to the environment for the company, accommodation, and jungle tour operator you have chosen. Most of the wealthy Indonesians always have various kinds of businesses, and of course having a private palm oil plantation is a favorite thing to do in making easy money. And in general, those who work in nature tourism are very rarely grateful for what nature has given to those who gain great benefits.