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Mongabay
Mongabay
JAKARTA — Deforestation inside Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, declined in 2021 to its lowest level in seven years, following a surge in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Leuser is known for being the last place on Earth where critically endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans coexist. It spans the northern half of Sumatra, covering nearly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) within the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra. Satellite monitoring from local NGO Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh (HAkA) shows that 4,472 h…