NRM News Archive
Issue 22, December 05, 2003
Global Tourism Winner Revealed
Bunaken National Marine Park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, beat more than 70 other entrants in the worldwide competition, which raises awareness of the world's leading role models for responsible tourism.
The judges assess how projects benefit the local community, protect the natural and cultural heritage, control energy and water use, educate local people and visitors and contribute towards a better life for future generations.
Bunaken's management has brought an end to damaging environmental practices in the park such as coral mining, mangrove cutting, and blast and cyanide fishing. At the same time, it has helped improve livelihood opportunities for 30,000 local residents and made education a priority, through scholarship programmes and links with local schools and universities.
The marine park's beaches have been cleaned and a joint patrol of villagers, rangers and police officers established to safeguard its valuable natural resources. In the last two years live coral cover has increased in the park by more than11 per cent.
Almost a third of the park's entrance fees are used to fund conservation and development projects which are proposed and implemented by the community. The local community has a strong input into the park's management initiative, as five of its fifteen board members are local residents.
Speaking about the global winner Professor David Bellamy, chairman of the judging panel said, "Bunaken is what natural parks and nature based tourism are all about. It is a biodiverse area of great beauty and importance to its nation and the world."
"The park is sustainably managed by the local community, safeguarding their own heritage, a rich living resource which they can hand on to their children. This Global winner is a perfect mix of national pride and tourism that doesn't cost the earth more than it can afford."
Lord Marshall, chairman of British Airways announced a change to the awards programme, which will in the future be managed and presented in conjunction with the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
He said: "Over the years, the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards have clearly grown in stature. From the beginning, the objective has been for the scheme to evolve in a way that would progressively increase scope, influence and effectiveness.
"Now, British Airways and WTTC will be working together to launch the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards into a new and exciting stage of development."
Jean-Claude Baumgarten, president, WTTC added: "Travel and tourism is one of the world's largest contributors of wealth and prosperity, accounting for more than 198 million jobs worldwide. Furthermore, if developed and managed effectively, our industry can actually nurture cultural and natural environments across the planet."
"For the last 11 years, the British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Awards have led the field in promoting and encouraging sustainable tourism development. WTTC is delighted to partner with British Airways, helping to raise the profile of Tourism for Tomorrow across all sectors of the industry worldwide."
The new-look awards programme will be unveiled at the WTTC's annual summit meeting in May 2004 and the first awards ceremony will take place at the WTTC summit in May 2005.
Notes:
A full list of category winners and highly commended entries are included below:
National parks and protected areas
Winner: Bunaken National Marine Park (Indonesia)
Highly Commended: Cousin Island Special Reserve, Nature Seychelles
Environmental Experience
Winner: Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk (Western Australia)
Highly Commended: P&O Australian Resorts Heron Island Junior Rangers Program; Ranweli Holiday Village, Sri Lanka
Accommodation
Winner: Hotel Finca Rosa Blanca (Costa Rica)
Highly Commended: Saunders Hotel Group, United States
Built Environment
No winner
Highly Commended: The Aga Khan cultural service for the Garnish Village project.
Tourism Organisation
Winner: ATG (UK)
Highly Commended: Community Tourism Project, Prainha do Canto Verde, Brazil.
Large scale Tourism
Winner: Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation
Highly Commended: Whistler Blackcomb Ski Area.
- The awards were presented at a ceremony on December 2, at British Airways' Headquarters. The ceremony was hosted by British Airwayschairman, Lord Marshall, and John Craven OBE.
- The global winner was chosen from a shortlist of five category winners. Entries are judged by an independent panel of leading environmental and conservation experts, including Professor David Bellamy, and Sir Crispin Tickell.
- The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is the forum for business leaders in the travel and tourism industry. With chief executives from 100 of the world's leading travel and tourism companies as its members, WTTC has a unique mandate and overview on all matters related to travel and tourism.
- WTTC works to raise awareness of travel and tourism as one of the world's largest industries, employing 200 million people and generating more than10% of world GDP.
- Further details about the British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow awards can be found on the website: www.britishairways.com/tourism
- For further information on WTTC, please visit www.wttc.org
For more information on the Global Travel & Tourism Summit please visit
www.globaltraveltourism.com
Submitted by:
Reed Merrill
Protected Areas & Forest Management Advisor
NRM III Jakarta
reedm@nrm.or.id
Issue 22, December 05, 2003
Marine Tourism Carrying Capacity Study for North Sulawesi's Reefs
Tourism can provide many benefits for the ecologically sustainable development of natural resources such as coral reefs, including a sustainable funding source for management. However, the negative impacts from uncontrolled marine tourism - coastal developments, boat and anchor damage and mass diving - have severely damaged or destroyed reefs in some parts of the world, notably in areas of the Red Sea. This in turn impacts on the traditional livelihoods of locals and threatens the very tourism market that drove the initial expansion.
Recently, both the Bunaken National Park Advisory Board (Dewan Pengelolaan Taman Nasional DPTNB) and the North Sulawesi Watersports Association (NSWA) have become concerned at the potential for a rapid increase in visiting dive tourists, threatening the outstanding biodiversity and longer term ecological and economic sustainability of the Park. If present trends continue unabated, environmental carrying capacity may soon be exceeded.
In response to this concern, the USAID's NRM III project funded a comprehensive marine tourism carrying capacity study for the reefs of North Sulawesi (including Bunaken National Park, the Bangka-Likupang area, and the Lembeh Strait). The present assessment will provide a solid framework for developing policy aimed at ensuring sustainability of marine tourism in BNP, Lembeh Strait and adjacent waters. The NRM III and CRMP II programs in North Sulawesi will work together with the private tourism sector, relevant government agencies and local communities to ensure that the results of this study are incorporated into North Sulawesis developing sustainable tourism plan.
To this purpose, we undertook field surveys of tourist use and impact at some 20 locations in BNP, Lembeh Strait and the Bangka - Likupang area in November 2003, recording diver numbers, their interactions with the reefs, and the levels of breakage of corals. We classified the numbers and types of diver interactions, for recreational divers, photographers and dive guides independently, in the following categories:
- touches;
- holds;
- accidental breakage;
- deliberate breakage;
- standing (snorkelers);
- harassment - e.g. waking / chasing turtles, prodding pygmy seahorses etc.;
- sediment disturbance by fins;
- bubbles - running up reef walls;
- number of camera flashes.
We assessed levels of damage to the reefs at four heavily used locations in BNP, surveying numbers of recently broken corals and cover of living and dead corals and coral rubble in sets of 'replicate' belt and line transects at two depths at each location.
We also assessed the 'quality' of dive briefings provided by dive operators, and guidance by dive guides. Questionnaire surveys of visitation rates and waste management of 'homestay' cottages within BNP will complete the survey.
Initial results indicate that, on average, each diver in BNP has some 12 interactions with the reef per one hour dive, although there were very few deliberate breakages (just 2 in total). Recreational divers, including snorkelers, caused most accidental breakages, photographers were more prone to disturbing sediments, and dive guides were mostly responsible for harassment of marine creatures, albeit in most cases to 'satisfy' the photographers. In Lembeh Strait, where the major dive focus is photography, numbers of interactions, notably of sediment disturbance and harassment, were two to three times higher than in BNP or Likupang area. There are also very high numbers of coral fragments and broken parent corals in the heavily dived areas, mostly attributable to diver and / or dive boat and anchor damage, suggesting that several locations are presently over-used.
The quality of dive briefings, and the levels of guidance, ranged widely, with few consistent trends among dive operations. Different dive parties, whether from the same or a different operator, behaved very differently, providing opportunities for immediate improvement through better diver education / awareness and guidance. These findings indicate that the carrying capacity for marine tourism will depend not just on the number of divers, but also on the types of divers, their training - education and guidance, the types of corals (e.g. fragile / stout), and the types and amount of infrastructure support. When completed, the study will provide extensive 'base-line' data on present levels of use and impact, and develop policy recommendations to ensure that future use remains within ecologically sustainable levels.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Lyndon DeVantier
Email:
ldevantier@aol.com
Dr. Emre Turak
Email:
emreturak@wanadoo.fr
Issue 22, December 05, 2003
Bunaken National Park Village Information Billboards Receive a Facelift
While the installation of 30 village information billboards in each of the settlements within Bunaken NP in mid-2001 was enthusiastically received by park villagers, it became clear by early 2003 that the billboards were not being utilized optimally. A rapid assessment of the billboards and villager comments and suggestions for improvement was held in February 2003, with recommendations ranging from the need to reposition a number of the billboards to the importance of using much larger font size in billboard materials and ensuring their timely replacement.
Based upon these recommendations, the NRM III SULUT Outreach team has worked closely with the Bunaken Concerned Citizen's Forum (FMPTNB) over the past 8 months to revamp the system and ensure that the billboards reach their full potential to broadly socialize park policies and new conservation developments. Twenty-eight of the billboards have been repositioned for maximum public exposure and readability, and 3 additional billboards have been installed. All 33 billboards were provided with an awning to further protect posted information from the elements. Perhaps most importantly, an editorial board was appointed by the FMPTNB, and this editorial board has received continuous on-the-job training by NRM III staff in basic journalism principles and layout and design. The editorial board has now produced a new, highly visually arresting set of materials that was posted on the billboards in October and have been extremely well-received by park villagers. The editorial board is committed to producing replacement materials on a bi-monthly basis.
As a complement to the new billboard materials, the editorial team has now also produced the first edition of the "FMPTNB Bulletin"- a full-color printed newsletter that closely mirrors the billboard information but presents it in a different format that was found to be more acceptable to a certain section of the village populace not inclined to read the billboards. It is hoped that this dual strategy of producing outreach materials for the park will reach the vast majority of the 30,000 villagers living within the park to increase their understanding of and commitment to protect Bunaken NP.
Arnold F.Winowatan
Communications & Outreach Assistant
NRM III North Sulawesi
arnoldw@nrm.or.id
