Komodo dragon kingdom under threat

Komodo dragon kingdom under threat

Duncan Graham, Contributor, Surabaya

The few Australians who venture east of Kuta and enter Wallacea
-- the Indonesian islands crunched between Kalimantan, New Guinea
and Australia -- often find the terrain curiously familiar.

The people, language, culture and lifestyle are all strikingly
different but in many areas the landform, savannah and some of
the wildlife are just like parts of Northern Australia.

Wallacea (named after the famous 19th century English
naturalist, Alfred Wallace) is hot and dry. Vegetation is often
sparse; rivers that run in the wet season die in summer.
Rainfall is shrinking. Fresh water is getting scarce.

The topography has been tortured by great upheavals in the
past. The distinctive ocher hue that paints the arid landscape
of the Great South Land -- and thought by many to be unique to
that continent -- also tints this part of Nusa Tenggara.

For ecotourists the centerpiece of this fascinating transition
zone between Asia and Australia is the sea and land that forms
Komodo National Park -- five main islands and a splash of islets
between Flores and Sumbawa. T

The biggest is Komodo and its major attraction is the
internationally famous 'dragon' (see sidebar).

Before the economic crisis, terrorist bombings and travel
warnings scared away the tourists, Komodo National Park attracted
30,000 outsiders a year, mainly from North America and Europe.

That number has now been cut by half.

The 1,817 square kilometer park was created in 1980. Despite
its protected status the area and its wildlife are under constant
threat from poachers, according to a new series of guidebooks
published by The Nature Conservancy's Indonesia Coastal and
Marine Program. They are titled A Natural History Guide to Komodo
National Park.

Three volumes cover the land mass, the marine areas and park
management.

Written in English and Indonesian, the pages enhanced by fine
line drawings by Donald Bason, the books should satisfy the most
curious of tourists and add significantly to the pleasure of any
visit.

In the past, factual information has been hard to assemble.
It's all there for anyone with a fast Internet connection or
access to a good marine science library, but it's all over the
place.

In my experience the rangers on Komodo have been as dormant as
the dragons when it comes to presenting facts. That's
understandable; it takes a real effort to keep smiling in the
face of a barrage of questions from bule who have come half-way
round the world to see this marvel, and are not going to leave
until they've sucked the sap out of the experience, whatever the
heat.

Issues that fascinate the visitor may be ho-hum to the ranger
who just hopes to find a placid reptile, make sure no-one goes
home limbless, and then retreat to the shade of a lontar palm.

Conservation, asset maintenance and promotion are awkward
partners.

So this guide is not just useful -- it is indispensable
reading before you brave the washing-machine turbulence between
the islands and after you hopefully make it to land. (Hint:
Wrap the books in plastic -- getting saturated is just one of the
lesser hazards of negotiating the park.)

More than welcome is the plain English text, particularly
useful to those who don't have the international language as
their mother tongue. Too many science writers seem to believe
their credibility depends on producing unintelligible
polysyllable-choked sentences the length of a long yawn.

The author, U.S. 'seacologist' Arnaz Mehta Erdmann, has chosen
a question-and-answer format. In the hands of government
publicists this style patronizes and frequently frustrates; the
queries authorities pose are not those you usually want to ask.
But in this case the questions assume intelligence and the
answers genuinely meet the need.

Volume Two records the park's marine life. The pictures and
descriptions should be enough to help check anything you are
likely to encounter among the 1,000 plus species of fish. If you
want more help there's a good bibliography. (The author is no
amateur. With her husband, marine biologist Dr Mark Erdmann, she
won international fame in the late 1990s for identifying the
lobe-finned coelacanth, the so-called 'fossil fish', in North
Sulawesi.)

More than 3,000 people live in the park. Most are the
descendants of recent settlers. They make their living mainly by
fishing for squid and shrimp, and from assisting the
infrastructure of tourism, with the monster lizards being the
box-office stars.

This industry is fragile; dragons have recently become extinct
on Padar island. This happened after poachers killed off the
Timor deer, the reptiles' main food source.

The park's 70 rangers have a tough job. They must persuade
the poorly-educated locals (including 16,000 others from the
islands of Flores and Sape who also fish the rich waters) that
bombing and poisoning the reef may fill the scuppers today but
will surely result in destruction of their livelihood as the
coral dies.

Firing the savannah may produce a venison steak barbecue, but
regular burning and felling will change the habitat and destroy
some of the 254 plant species.

If these go, so will many of the 277 animal species. Because
most are dependent on each other for food, shelter, fertilizer
and other essentials, upsetting the balance has some unpleasant
effects: Extinction is forever.

The Komodo National Park is not just an extraordinary eco-
system. It is an international treasure that Indonesia has to
husband on behalf of the world. That tricky task can be made
easier if rich visitors wanting to gape, and poor locals
struggling to survive, can understand what is happening and why
they should care.

These books explain all, succinctly and well.

Further information about the three-part Komodo National Park
guide is available from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on (0361)
287272 (contact person Tri Soekirman) or website: www.tnc-
seacmpa.org. The Komodo National Park website is:
http://www.komodonationalpark.org