UN helps develop Ujung Kulon, Komodo into ecotourism sites
UN helps develop Ujung Kulon, Komodo into ecotourism sites
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The United Nations has chosen the Komodo and Ujung Kulon
national parks for a US$1 million project linking environmental
conservation and tourism, along with four other world heritage
sites.
The UN said in a statement on Thursday that the project, which
uses tourism to help mitigate threats to biodiversity
conservation, will become a blueprint for initiatives elsewhere,
where the demands of tourists can be balanced with the needs and
cultural traditions of local people, the landscape and the
environment.
"Ecotourism should provide an opportunity to develop tourism
in ways that minimize the industry's negative impacts and a way
to actively promote the conservation of earth's unique
biodiversity," said Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the
UN Environment Program (UNEP).
The fund, equally shared by the UN and cosmetics giant Aveda,
will also go to Sian Ka'an and El Vizcaino biosphere reserves in
Mexico, Tikal national park in Guatemala and the Rio Planto
biosphere reserve in Honduras.
By working with managers, the industry and local people, the
project is expected to bring together conservation education,
planning, business, development, training and marketing
techniques to create a model for using tourism to promote the
protection of important habitats.
"One of the project's strengths is that it rests on a
partnership between protected areas, managers and the private
sector to promote biodiversity conservation and economic
development," UNEP assistant executive director Jacqueline Aloisi
de Larderel said.
The announcement came ahead of the official launch of the
International Year of Ecotourism at the UN headquarters in New
York next Monday.
Ujung Kulon is located at the western tip of Java, about a
three-hour drive from Jakarta. It is the home to several
endangered animals and plants, including the Javan rhinoceros,
whose population is believed to be less than 50.
Komodo park is situated on an island in East Nusa Tenggara,
where the endangered Komodo dragon, numbering less than 6,000,
lives.