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.