The only safe ferry service to Komodo National Park stopped

The only safe ferry service to Komodo National Park stopped

By Jonathan Agranoff

JAKARTA (JP): Komodo island in eastern Indonesia has been an
important tourist destination as well as a World Heritage Site
for Indonesia. It is the unique home of the Komodo Dragon
(Varanus komodoensis), which lives nowhere else in the world.

As such, Komodo island is the major destination for travelers
in eastern Indonesia and the tourism revenue generated is vital
for the local economy.

Now, the only safe public ferry service operated by the state-
owned river and lake transportation and ferry service company
ASDP has been inexplicably stopped for almost a year, and tourism
and the local economy is collapsing.

Ferry operator ASDP had operated a ferry service between Sape
(Sumbawa) and Labuan Bajo (Flores) via Komodo island since the
1970s. This service provided a vital link not only for the Komodo
islanders to bring in essential commodities, but also opened up
the National Park to visitors by allowing them to cross the
treacherous waters of the Lintah strait in relative safety.

Last year, an inexplicable decision was made by ASDP's local
manager, Ibrahim, in Sape harbor, Sumbawa island to cease the
service via Komodo -- thus effectively cutting off the island
from any recognized form of public transportation.

Tourists, who have made the epic journey as far as Sumbawa or
Flores, are forced to risk their lives on the perilous five to
10-hour crossing by local sailing craft, that are chartered by
the mafia of Labuan Bajo boat owners.

Remote parts of Indonesia are difficult enough to reach safely
at the best of times, and the most basic step in infrastructural
development in the country is the provision of safe land and sea
communications for its citizens.

The impoverished Komodo islanders have been dependent on the
daily ferry service to bring vital vegetables and other foods
which they are forbidden from growing in a National Park, and
malnutrition and infectious diseases are rife. Skin infections,
abscesses and a variety of respiratory diseases are present in
the community, which are exacerbated by poor immunity due to
malnutrition. Komodo villagers receive no medical attention
worthy of the name unless they travel the perilous and expensive
voyage to Flores where facilities are only marginally better but
too expensive.

Tourism collapse

With no safe ferry service, tourists are forced to charter
local sailing craft at hugely inflated rates, and there have been
many cases of tourists arriving at Sape port in Sumbawa expecting
to catch the ferry, only to find that they have to charter local
fishing boats at exorbitant costs.

Komodo National Park guards have reported first-time tourists
arriving in tears and hysterical after spending 24 hours at sea.
Apparently the Sape boat owners have lied to them saying it is a
short journey.

Komodo is a long and dangerous sea journey from Sumbawa or
Flores in one of the most dangerous seas in Indonesia. Indeed,
accidents are common and local fishing boats are often lost to
the strong currents and powerful whirlpools. Even an Indonesian
minister and his wife were lost a few years ago in a good
motorboat caught in a freak wind that makes the Lintah strait so
dangerous.

The National Park figures cite figures showing that tourism
has dropped off to only 10 percent. In the Flores village of
Labuan Bajo, which has developed entirely from tourist money,
boat owners have created a mafia to get hold of tourists' dollars
to charter their boats as there is no ferry.

Even the government National Parks and Wildlife Service has to
take risks in chartering local boats and their revenue from
tourists to Komodo has plummeted to 10 percent what it was five
years ago.

So why has this happened? Rumors of corruption certainly
abound, and the office responsible for the decision is ASDP in
Sape, Sumbawa, headed by Ibrahim. Those benefiting directly from
the lack of ferry are the Labuan Bajo charter-boat mafia. Even
the harbormaster's office in Labuan Bajo declined providing an
answer to this dilemma as to why Komodo, the most important
tourist attraction in Eastern Indonesia, has become inaccessible
and dangerous to tourists and why the local authorities provide
such a "primitive" service.

Decentralization in Indonesia has allowed a degree of autonomy
to make local decisions such as this. Indeed, it is unlikely that
the appropriate authorities and ministries in Jakarta -- such as
the land transportation directorate, the ministry of tourism, and
the ministry of transportation -- are aware of this. Where
national interests and valuable tourism are at stake, it may be
considered appropriate for Jakarta to intervene.

The author is a UK-based medical doctor and regular visitor to
Indonesia for medical aid and research.