komodo islands

Komodo National Park

            The Komodo National Park is a nasional park in Indonesia located near the Lesser Sunda Islands in the border region bettween the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara. The park includes the three larger islands Komodo, Rinca and Padar, as well as numoreus smaller ones, and total area of 1817 km² ( 603 km² of it land ). The national park was founded in 1980 in order to protect the komodo dragon. Later it was dedicated to protecting other species, including marine species. The islands of the national park are of volcanic origin. About 4000 people life within the park. In 1986 the national park was named a UNESCO world Heritage Site.

            Scuba diving is popular komodo national park because of its high marine biodifersity, including whalle shark, ocean sunfish, mantra rays, eagle rays, pygmy seahorse, false pipefish, clown froggfish, blue-ringed occtopus, sponges, tunicates, and coral.

            Since 1995, the national park authority has been supported by the nature conservacy (TNC), a American enviromental organization. A new management plan was co-authored with TNC and implemented in 2000 to address the problem of increasing resource exploitation, both marine and terrestrial. Most presure on marine resources originates from fishing communities and comercial enterprises from uotside the park. However, regulations and restritions on resource use impact mostly on park residents, who have few options to make a living but rely on what the park has to offer. The provision of alternative livelihoods are part of the overall management strategy, but comunities within the park is yet to benefit from appropiate measures addressing their needs.

            The development of ecotourism is the main strategy to make the park self-financing and generrate sufficient revenue throuh entrance fees and tourism licenses to cover operasional and managerial costs. To this ends, a joint venture between TNC and tourism operator were granted a tourism concession, that also entails extensive park management rights. This concession has generated an ongoing controversy. The joint venture has been accused of making decisions behind closed doors, and many people in and around komodo claim that they havent been consulated regarding decisions that ultimately affect their lives.

            Most controversi, however, was caused by the death of seferal fisherman since 1980s. The circumstaces of the fisherman`s deaaths are contested. While park patrol (including, at the time, police and navy personels) claim they acted in self-defense, fishing communities accuse park managemen of having deliberatel killed the fisherman.

            Komodo National Park remains an awe-inspiring experience for tourist and travelers, but the convlict between park management, TNC and local comunities continues unabated.

            Komodo National Park has been nominated and made it to at least 28 finallist to become of the new 7 wonders of the world.