Bogor Botanical Gardens

Background The area that is now Bogor Botanical Gardens was part of the samida (man-made forest) that was established at least around the era when Sri Baduga Maharaja (Prabu Siliwangi, 1474–1513) ruled the Sunda Kingdom, as written in the Batutulis inscription. This forest was created to protect seeds of rare trees. The forest remained neglected after the Sundanese kingdom was destroyed in the 16th century. In 1744 the Dutch East India Company established a garden and mansion at the site of the present botanical gardens in Buitenzorg (now known as Bogor). After the successful British invasion of Java in 1811, Stamford Raffles was appointed as the island's lieutenant-governor, and he took Buitenzorg Palace as his residence. During his rule in the palace, he had the garden re-landscaped into English-style garden. His wife, Olivia Mariamne Raffles, died in Buitenzorg on November 26, 1814, and was buried in Batavia. A memorial monument was built in the garden, as a commemoration for her. Lands Plantentuin te Buitenzorg in 1899. . When the Anglo-Dutch Treaty came into effect, the Netherlands in 1816 sent a ship with officials to resume control of the colony. Among those on board was the German-born botanist Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt, who was appointed as head of agriculture, arts and science of the colony. A year later he proposed the establishment of a botanical garden, a move which was supported by Governor-General Van der Capellen. The garden was officially founded on May 18, 1817, next to the palace grounds through a collaboration with two botanists, William Kent from Holland and James Hooper from Kew. The garden was established as ('National Botanical Garden'). He became its first director for five years and gathered plants and seeds of economic potential from all over the archipelago for cultivation. Much of his taxonomic work was catalogued by his successor Carl Ludwig Blume in 1823, who recorded 914 plants in the garden. In 1830, Johannes Elias Teijsmann, a Dutch botanist, became curator of Bogor Botanic Garden and spent more than 50 years developing the garden. Seven years later Justus Carl Hasskarl was appointed as his assistant curator and convinced the director to re-arrange the plantings in the garden by taxonomic families. Hasskarl proposed starting a library, which opened in 1842 as the Bibliotheca Bogoriensis, and constructed a separate building for the Herbarium Bogoriense, which opened in 1844. J. Teijsmann wrote the second catalogue of plants which listed more than 2800 species by 1844. He also has the garden significantly expanded in 1852, with a new garden branch laid down near the mountainous town of Cibodas. In 1848 the garden received four seeds of West African oil palm, these trees were believed to be the mother tree in Southeast Asia from which numerous descendants were produced to support the growth of the palm oil industry in the region. However, the last original mother plant died in 1933. The garden also played major role in the introduction of Cinchona trees to Java in 1854, which would ultimately make the island the largest producer of quinine bark for malaria treatment. A new branch of the garden was opened near the town of Pasuruan Regency in East Java, under the name Purwodadi Botanical Garden under the direction of the acting director Lourens Baas Becking on January 30, 1941. The new garden was intended for tropical-dry plants cultivation. However, before much could be done to develop the new garden, the Dutch East Indies would soon join World War II. In March 1942 the Japanese marched into Bogor and a year later took over the directorship of both the garden and the herbarium. Two Japanese botanists were appointed in charge of the botanic garden, Professor Takenoshin Nakai (中井猛之進) as director and Kanehira (兼平) as head of the herbarium. These two men strove to protect the garden from Japanese soldiers who planned to have the trees from the garden cut down for war lumber supplies. Under the Japanese the garden was renamed Shokubutsuen (植物園; Botanical Garden). Kebun Raya Bogor The Dutch returned to Indonesia after the Japanese surrendered and resumed management of the garden from 1945 to 1949. After Dutch recognition of Indonesia as a sovereign state, the Ministry of Agriculture took over the management of the garden and renamed 's Lands Plantentuin te Buitenzorg to "Institute of Nature Study" (Lembaga Pusat Penyelidikan Alam; LLPA) and the garden "Kebun Raya" (Great Garden). Kusnoto Setyodiwirjo became the first Indonesian curator, who eventually to become head of the garden in 1959. Recent events On May 16, 2006, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) celebrated its 189th anniversary in collaboration with the German Embassy. During the event a monument dedicated to Reinwardt was placed near Gunting pond. The anniversary was accompanied by the ASEAN-China Workshop Botanical Garden on Management and Plant Conservation event, which took place in the garden. At the end of the celebration, several trees were planted by the attending 10 ministries of ASEAN. However, on the first of June 2006, a storm hit Bogor and many trees and plants in the garden that were more than 100 years old were damaged. As a result, the garden was closed a week for replanting and repair. In 2009, an orchidarium was opened nearby the orchid house to celebrate the 192nd anniversary of the botanic gardens. In 2020, Bogor Botanical Garden along with other 3 major Indonesian botanical gardens (Cibodas, Purwodadi & Bali) went into Public-Private Partnership to operate public services within the botanical gardens, a private company named PT. Mitra Natura Raya was established as a Government's strategic partner to operate the gardens. ==Features and layout==