Site: Komodo National Park
Type of Partnership:
Website(s): http://www.icran.org/SITES/doc/WS_komodo.pdf
www.komodonationalpark.org
Contact Name: Rili Djohani
Phone: 62 (361) 287-272 or 286-018 or 270-792
Email: rdjohani@attglobal.net
Address: The Nature Conservancy - Coastal and Marine Program, Jalan Pengembak No 2, Sanur – Denpasar, Bali 80288, Indonesia
Description: A long-term partnership between The Nature Conservancy and Komodo National Park. This national park a Man and Biosphere and a World Heritage Site. The goals of the partnership are to preserve the national park’s biodiversity while using the Park’s natural resources in a sustainable way, for tourism, education, fisheries, and research, with benefits to surrounding community to make them stakeholders in the success of the conservation effort. A major objective is to ensure that the park authority is financially self-sustaining, recovering costs through user fees. This requires the development of a tourism industry capable of generating the revenue needed for the operation of the park. The Komodo Collaborative Management Initiative is strategy for achieving sustainability in KNP by involving additional stakeholders. The parties to the initiative are the park authority, the local government, and the joint venture established to manage tourism in the park (see below).

The Komodo Park Authority and The Nature Conservancy have undertaken extensive stakeholder consultations, and on the basis of them, identified needs and opportunities for partnerships. This has resulted in training of local entrepreneurs to provide business services, especially relating to tourism, as a way of providing sustainable livelihoods and directing economic activity away from activities injurious to the park and its resources.

Recent research by various agencies shows that over-exploitation is rampant on Indonesia’s coral reefs. By setting aside some of Komodo’s reefs, so that fish and other ‘seafood’ species can grow and reproduce, these reefs function as capital or ‘money in the bank’. The capital will yield interest (fish) for future generations. In most other areas in Indonesia, the capital has long vanished, leaving coastal communities with a choice to settle for low-valued fish, to find other fishing grounds (thereby causing the same problem elsewhere), or to find another occupation. The Park will make sure that at least in the Komodo area, there will always be an opportunity for responsible fishers to make a living. This benefit is provided by the Park itself. TNC's role is in helping to develop a model for sustainability of the park itself.

TNC is also directly helping with the development of local communities who are committed to conservation by implementing projects that serve conservation objectives. An example is the pelagic fishery development project, where TNC is helping local communities to make a living by fishing in the open seas for tuna and related species. Another example is the seaweed culture project in Sape. And the Komodo Fish Culture Project seeks to transform the highly destructive practice of capturing live reef-fish using cyanide into a sustainable aquaculture practice ensuring livelihoods for the fishing communities adjacent to the park over the long term.

Together with a local tourism entrepreneur (Feisol Hashim) TNC has formed a Joint Venture (‘Pt Putri Naga Komodo’) in a concession to manage tourism in Komodo National Park. In this Joint Venture, TNC has a majority share. The concession will allow the joint venture to improve Park infrastructure, to develop the Park as an eco-tourism destination and to collect entrance fees. The purposed of setting up the joint venture is to make Komodo National Park financially self-sustaining. Revenues
will be re-invested in the Park. Shareholders will not gain financially from the company.