What a flood of extra tourists means for Indonesia’s Komodo dragon

The first Komodo dragon I saw in the wild was a gorgeous adult female, blocking the trail like a two-metre-long sentinel in Indonesia’s Komodo national park.

For a moment, in my awed mind, she was a mythical dragon demanding payment for passage. But this thought was quickly scuttled as two tourists raced in front to capture a selfie with the apex predator. The agitated dragon ran off into the underbrush – they were lucky she didn’t run the other way and bite off one of their legs. I’d travelled thousands of miles to see a Komodo dragon and it had just been scared away by reckless travellers.

Now, a major upgrade of the airport closest to the national park, Komodo Airport near Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores, is set to bring more tourists to the 29 islands that make up the Unesco-protected park, potentially threatening its eponymous beast. The airport used to handle 150,000 tourists a year; now it can accommodate 1.5 million, with its new terminal and lengthened runway. Garuda Indonesia flies there at weekends from Bali and Bajawa, elsewhere on Flores.

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The world’s largest lizard, the Komodo dragon is arguably Indonesia’s best-conserved large animal. Protected under Indonesian law, the population is relatively stable, with around 2,500 animals in the park and another 2,000 on larger Flores island, though this population faces habitat loss. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s populations of orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos continue to plummet as rainforest is destroyed for palm oil, mining, timber and paper industries.

People here truly appreciate the dragon, my guide, Arman Rikardus, told me. He said increasing tourism meant that locals like him didn’t have to move to Bali to find work, although they have witnessed a sudden rise in inflation as the number of people moving to Labuan Bajo pushed up the cost of food and housing.

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He also warned that if tourism gets out of control, the demand for new infrastructure could cut into the dragon’s already limited habitat. At present, less than 10 per cent of the national park is actually open to the public, so many of the dragons are able to live out their lives without ever running into a selfie taker.