Sirtwo Island Tourism: Private Island at Saguling Dam

TEMPO.CO, Bandung - Sirtwo Island at Saguling Dam, West Bandung regency, West Java, has attracted the spotlight following the recent discovery of animal fossils in the area. The area was initially designated as a tourist attraction by its management, which touted the inhabited island as a private island.

As several tourist destinations at Rajamandala are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Geowisata Indonesia tour guide Moch. Rizky Hardjadinata strived to find new ones. After finding a new land in Saguling Dam in 2019, he proposed a non-group trip to Sirtwo Island to avoid crowds.

"The idea of a private island is made for a person to explore the island," Rizki told Tempo on October 24, 2021. Together with his two friends, in 2018 he pioneered the tour, which is now managed in tandem the locals who also sought to combat illegal sand mining activities in the area.

Rizky said the name of the island was inspired from the two rocks that stood out from afar from the island. He likened them with the figures of two men and created a story about them. In order to make it sound like an English word, the name Sirtwo Island was then coined to chronicle the men on the island.

After the fossil discovery was confirmed by a team of paleontologists from the University of Indonesia and the Bandung Institute of Technology, Rizky ceased all tourist activities on the island and became a guide for the team, which has visited the island multiple times since Sunday, October 10, 2021.

The team found on the island the remains of elephant foot bones, skull parts, and teeth from the bovidae class animals such as cows, buffaloes and bisons. "Fragments of teeth and bones and deer's antlers have also been found on the ground," says Sukiato Khurniawan, a paleontologist from the Geoscience Department of the University of Indonesia on Thursday, October 14, 2021.

The findings were the results of a report from the locals on objects they suspected as fossils. "I'm surprised and did not expect to find any fossils here," Rizky said. He added the island was some sort of a hill before it was inundated by the water from the dam. During the dry season, a swathe of land would appear together with boulders that resemble some mini caves.

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ANWAR SISWADI