Karimunjawa

Karimunjawa National Park was established in 1999 in the Java Sea, in the regency of Jepara, Central Java province, and protects some 1,116 km² around an archipelago of twenty-seven islands, only a few of which are inhabited.

Its interest lies in the combination of coastal ecosystems within a small space: coral reefs, seagrass meadows, mangroves, coastal beach forest and lowland tropical forest on the larger islands. That last is especially valuable, because Java's lowland forest has all but disappeared on the main island and fragments with rare tree species survive here.

The waters hold marine turtles that nest on the beaches, reef sharks and a diverse fish fauna, and the islands host seabird colonies and the white-bellied sea eagle, the park's symbol. The local population lives chiefly from fishing and, increasingly, from tourism, whose rapid growth over the last decade is the main management challenge alongside destructive fishing. In 2020 UNESCO designated the Karimunjawa Jepara Muria Biosphere Reserve, of some 1,236,084 hectares, which brings the national park together with the mainland territory of Jepara and the Mount Muria massif.