Lorentz

Declared in 1997, it is the largest national park in South-East Asia at over 25,000 km², and protects the only complete altitudinal sequence on the planet running from tropical coral reefs up to permanent equatorial glaciers on the Puncak Jaya massif, the snow-capped summit closest to the equator in the world. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 for representing, uniquely on Earth, the active collision between the Australian and Pacific plates, a geological process still under way that goes on lifting its mountains. Its extreme isolation — no roads in, reachable only by light aircraft or long treks — has let it keep intact populations of species endemic to New Guinea, several birds of paradise among them.