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.
