NRM News Archive
Issue 20, May 30, 2000
A Good Day for Bunaken!
Dear All,
Yesterday (Senin, 22 Mei) was a good day for Bunaken National Park. Three
major policy breakthroughs occurred:
1) A top-level, emergency meeting of PEMDA officials called by the vice
governor to discuss the problems now facing Bunaken National Park and ways
to deal with them, including the setup of the official entrance fee system.
The meeting opened with the vice governor reporting on the letter from North
SulawesiWatersport Association (NSWA) describing the cyanide fishing
problems in the park now, as well as other problems he'd recently heard of,
including the impact of mercury from illegal mining, mangrove cutting, and
sedimentation from the Manado reclamation project. He then suggested that
these problems would best be dealt with by the multi-agency oversight
committee suggested by the NRM Program. This committee should include not
only BTNB and the various PEMDA agencies (Pariwisata, perikanan, etc), but
also (and this is a key point) NSWA, NRM Program, and Kelola. The committee
should meet monthly to discuss problems facing the park and determine
multi-agency solutions, using money that will be collected through the
institution of an official entrance fee. The details of the entrance fee
system are yet to be finalized, but all officials were very agreeable with
the ideas put forth by NSWA and others whereby a "pin" system similar to the
Bonaire Marine Park will be used for diving tourists.
This is excellent news - we've finally gotten past the "entrance gate" idea
whereby all boats would have to line up every morning to pay entrance fees
to the park. Rather, dive operators will be responsible for collecting a
one-time fee from all dive tourists (probably on the order of US$10), who
will receive a pin to attach to their BCD or wetsuit (the government
officials loved the idea once put forth by Simone of having villagers make
these pins from tempurung, after which they will be stamped with a number
and logo). Dive operators will then be required to turn in this money
directly to the Bunaken Conservation Trust Fund, where it will be used
exclusively for management/enforcement activities in the park. Since NSWA
will be a member of the oversight board, we will have a major say in how
this money is used.
The vice governor ordered that the official provincial law on this be
prepared and ready within a month, so there will be a lot of activity over
the next month. Overall, I was extremely impressed with the willingness of
these various agencies to cooperate to solve the problems in Bunaken - and I
am very hopeful of the future of this committee....
2) The enforcement memorandum of understanding was signed between
NSWA/BTNB/SATPOLAIR to formalize this agreement for increased patrols.
Thanks very much to Zulhan for putting this together, and to Angelique
Batuna, Pak Dominggus, and Pak Agus Sutikno for signing this into reality.
This agreement now allows the matching funds from NRM in Jakarta to be
released. Official patrols will start next month. We can discuss this at
length at the next meeting, but please note that it is extremely important
that everyone continue to collect the $5 fee from your guests so that we can
build up enough funds to match the NRM offer of $5000-7000. Obviously,
once the official park entrance fee goes into effect (probably by August),
we won't be able to collect this $5 fee in addition. So it is important to
collect this now. And please push the scholarship fund as well!
3) Meity from Kelola and Om Yunus from Alung Banoa reported on a
breakthrough in negotiations with Alung Banoa villagers on the zonation
revision process. As you all know, doing this revision in a democratic
manner means it is slow going, and opens the process to villagers to be able
to greatly delay things by refusing to compromise. Things were looking bad
in AlBan last week, but it appears that Meity and Yunus have succeeded in
getting the villagers to "see the light" - so we are now making some good
progress in negotiations. The goal is to have the draft revision ready by
the time I leave for the US on 20 June - and it will be distributed to all
villagers and dive operators for one month of review and comment. In early
August, we will accept all suggested changes and try to finalize the
revision and get it approved by local government....
Mark Erdmann
Marine Protected Areas Advisor
NRM Program
flotsam@manado.wasantara.net.id
Issue 12, April 05, 2000
ZONATION REVISION: Charting a New Course for Effective Management of Bunaken National Park
Introduction
Bunaken National Park (TNB) in North Sulawesi was formally established as a
marine national park in October 1991, and has since become one of Indonesia'
s most well-known marine ecotourism destinations. The park encompasses
79,056 hectares of land and sea area, divided into a southern mainland
section (the Arakan-Wowontulap coast, set aside primarily for its old-growth
mangrove forests and dugong population) and a northern island section (with
five islands famous for their drop-off fringing coral reefs). The NRM
program was extensively involved in management planning for TNB throughout
the early 1990's, culminating in the formulation of the Bunaken National
Park Management Plan in 1996. However, despite this NRM assistance, its
formal status as a national park and its international stature, TNB has
suffered a slow but continuous degradation of its marine resources, in large
part due to ineffective management and enforcement.
Two primary factors behind the management shortcomings have been a
problematic zonation system and an increasingly fractious relationship
between the park management authority (BTNB) and the local government.
Concomitant with this deteriorating management situation has been an
increasingly vocal call from the private sector (primarily diving tourism
operators) for better protection of the park's reef resources. Since
mid-1998, the NRM/EPIQ program (locally known as NRM2) has been involved in
efforts to strengthen the BTNB and in particular to revise the park's
zonation system to effect better management. With the recent expansion of
the North Sulawesi NRM/EPIQ office, efforts towards this end have further
intensified. It is the intention of this news brief to introduce the
initiatives currently being pursued in TNB, with regular progress updates
planned approximately every two weeks. This brief will focus on the zonation
revision initiative in TNB.
Zonation revision
Management of Indonesia's national parks is based upon a zonation system,
whereby the park area is divided into various use zones (eg, core
conservation zones, community use zones, etc), with specific regulations on
activities within each zone. The Bunaken National Park Management Plan
(NRMP, 1996) includes a proposed zonation system that was designed through a
participatory process with villagers, dive operators and government
officials. Unfortunately, the "official" TNB zonation plan (as set forth in
the 1997 ministerial decree on TNB zonation) is different from that proposed
in the management plan, and does not specifically address what activities
are allowed in each of the zones beyond some quite general discussion (eg,
"sustainable" fishing methods are allowed in the community use zone). The
result of these two conflicting zonations (and the lack of detailed
regulations for each zone) has been great confusion on behalf of villagers,
rangers and dive operators alike, as well as a paralyzed enforcement system.
>
In an attempt to clarify this situation, the BTNB requested the assistance
of NRM/EPIQ to begin a multi-stakeholder, participatory zonation revision
process. While initial attempts to involve representatives of all
stakeholder groups in a single zonation team stalled (primarily due to bad
relations between central and local government agencies), a new strategy has
recently evolved that has the support of all parties involved. Initial
efforts towards revision of the zonation (and especially clarification of
specific regulations for each zone) are focusing on the two main user groups
of the park's resources: villagers and the marine tourism private sector.
>Rather than attempting to revise the entire park at one time, the revision
process will focus on a village by village, island by island basis. This new
process began in early March 2000, and is initially focusing on what would
undoubtedly be considered the "core" of the park, Bunaken island.
The thrust of this process is via a series of community meetings (both open
and focal group meetings) to discuss villager concerns and suggestions on
improving the current zonation and setting detailed regulations on
activities to be allowed in each zone. Parallel meetings are also being
conducted with a zonation committee from the North Sulawesi Water sports
Association (NSWA), a group of environmentally-concerned marine tourism
operators in the area. Results of meetings with each group are shared with
the other, and with both local and central government officials (primarily
through invitation for representatives of select offices to participate in
these meetings, but also through direct appraisal of progress).
Meetings to date have been lively and productive, and both of the primary
user groups have shown a willingness for compromise (a key point, since
there is the potential for diametrically opposed viewpoints on park usage
between these two groups). Once consensus is reached on the location and
regulations for each zone (possibly formalized in a village decree), this
agreement will be presented to both the BTNB and local government for their
comment, revision, and eventual approval. Aspects of this process are based
largely upon the model of village marine sanctuary zonation developed by
CRMP in North Sulawesi, and field personnel and villagers from CRMP-assisted
villages have been invited to share their experiences with villagers within
TNB.
The first phase of this revision process (focused on Bunaken island) is
expected to take several months of intensive effort to finalize a zonation
that is mutually agreeable to all stakeholder parties and will therefore be
robust and effective as a management tool. Throughout this first phase,
emphasis is being placed on recording the "lessons learned" in order that a
revised model can be developed for continuing this process in a more
efficient manner in the next villages.
In addition to finalizing the zonation revision for TNB, one important goal
of this work is to develop a well-documented model process for participative
zonation revision to be used in other national parks throughout Indonesia.
Additionally, the inclusion of the North Sulawesi Water sports Association
in this work contributes towards another NRM/EPIQ initiative in TNB - the
responsible involvement of the private sector in management and enforcement
activities. Finally, it is hoped that the participative process used in this
zonation revision will lay the groundwork for a more cooperative
relationship between the national park management authority (BTNB) and local
government. In particular, this process should lead into a synchronous
development of a plan for implementation of a park entrance fee system -
which has great potential to solve the problems of local government
resentment over the national park if implemented properly. This latter issue
will be the subject of a future update on NRM/EPIQ's TNB activities in North
Sulawesi.
Mark Erdmann
Marine Protected Areas Advisor
NRM Program
flotsam@manado.wasantara.net.id
