HEYBALI – Mount Tambora is famous for one of the most violent eruptions in recorded history. This week it made headlines for something far smaller in scale, but just as telling about how some hikers still treat protected mountains.
What Happened
A joint patrol on Mount Tambora in West Nusa Tenggara caught 13 hikers breaking park rules on Tuesday, August 18. Ten of them had picked edelweiss flowers from the summit and carried them down the mountain.
The other three had left food packaging and other trash behind on the trail instead of packing it out. Police, army personnel, forest rangers, and staff from the Tambora National Park office ran the patrol together, covering both main routes up the mountain, the Rimba Gate trail in Bima Regency and the Pancasila trail in Dompu Regency.
“Yes, that’s correct, 13 hikers violated the rules while climbing Mount Tambora,” said Iptu Suhadak, chief of the Tambora Police Sector, when contacted by local media.
Why Edelweiss Picking Is Taken So Seriously
Edelweiss looks harmless enough, a small white flower that grows near mountain summits across Indonesia. But it grows slowly, reproduces poorly once disturbed, and has been stripped from popular trails for decades by hikers wanting a souvenir or a photo.
That is why national parks across the country, Tambora included, ban picking it outright. All 13 hikers received a written warning and a one year ban from climbing Mount Tambora, according to Suhadak.
A Rule Bali’s Own Hikers Will Recognize
Mount Tambora sits in West Nusa Tenggara, not Bali, but the rule at the center of this story will feel familiar to anyone who has hiked Mount Agung or Mount Batur. Bali’s own national park authorities enforce the same ban on picking edelweiss and the same expectation that hikers carry their trash back down, with fines and climbing bans used to enforce it.
For travelers island hopping between Bali and Nusa Tenggara’s volcanoes, a common route for anyone chasing sunrise treks and remote peaks, the message is the same wherever the trail is. What grows on the summit stays on the summit.
What Comes Next for Mount Tambora’s Trails
Suhadak said joint patrols will continue on Tambora’s climbing routes, with extra coverage planned around high traffic periods such as Indonesian Independence Day and New Year’s, when hiker numbers spike. The goal, he said, is to prevent security and order problems on the trail before they happen, not just respond after the fact.
For now, Tambora’s rangers have made their point with 13 climbers who found out the hard way that a flower and a candy wrapper were not worth a year off the mountain.
