Destinations Known | The future of Komodo National Park hangs in the balance, caught between tourism industry and environmental concerns
- Rampant poaching of deer, the prey of the park’s famous reptilian residents, has caused the large lizards to shrink in size
- Local authorities push for year-long closure, but Indonesia’s central government resistant
We are barely more than a month into 2019, and already there has been talk of restricting access to more popular tourist destinations. In the spotlight this time are the 29 islands that make up Indonesia’s Komodo National Park – home to the world’s largest lizards – but, for once, pesky tourists aren’t to blame.
Speaking to English-language Indonesian news portal Tempo on January 18, the governor of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat, said the park’s famed reptile inhabitants, “dragons” known for their hulking proportions, were becoming smaller because of a declining deer population, the result of rampant poaching.
“The NTT government will reorganise and improve the Komodo National Park so that it can further sustain Komodo habitats,” said the governor. “We plan to close the park for an entire year.”
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, Komodo dragons are extremely vulnerable to extinction due to human activity, such as the pinching of their prey, and the any closure aimed at boosting the giant lizard population would be supported by environmentalists.
Not surprisingly, though, Arief Yahya, Indonesia’s minister of tourism, is opposed to the idea.
“Closing Komodo National Park is irrelevant,” he said at the ministry’s main office in Jakarta, on January 29, as quoted by Tempo.
This followed a statement by Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the minister of environment and forestry. “Komodo National Park is a tourist destination where a lot of entrepreneurs, from the tourism ministry and others, run businesses,” she said on January 24.
