1
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background
Over the last three decades increasing interest has been expressed in environmental
issues, largely as a result of the concern felt by many people, both in the North and the
South, about the state of our global environment. Gloomy predictions for the future of
humans and the species with which we share the Earth are being made. One of the
most serious global concerns during the last 15-20 years has been the rising extinction
rates of species in the tropics, particularly in rain forests and coral reef environments,
prompting some to call it the Sixth (and only human induced) Mass Extinction
(Leakey 1995, Wilson 1988, 1992).
Biodiversity conservation1 is a central element in the ongoing discussion of
sustainable development2, its importance being underscored by the emphasis devoted
to the topic at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
in Rio. The Convention on Biological Diversity was carved out before and during this
conference and entered into force in December 1993, signed by more than 150 states
(Jeffries 1997).
Species richness generally increases with decreasing latitude, and therefore the
overwhelming majority of species are located in developing countries (DCs) (WCMC
1992, 1996). These countries often face similar types of problems in managing their
natural resources sustainably3, leading to rapid degradation of natural habitats and
1
The importance of (biodiversity) conservation is expressed in the words of WCED
(1987:147):‘Conservation of living natural resources - plants, animals, and micro-organisms, and the
non-living elements of the environment on which they depend - is crucial for development.’ The term
‘biodiversity’ will be defined and explained in section 2.2.1.
2 ‘Sustainable development’ was an idea first espoused in the World Conservation Strategy produced
by IUCN, WWF and UNEP in 1980 (IUCN 1980, Pearce et al 1990). The term was (re)introduced to a
much wider audience in 1987 through the well-known UN report ‘Our Common Future’ (WCED 1987),
and since then the literature on sustainable development has exploded. The WCED definition of the
term is very well-known and will not be repeated here.
3 Some of these problems are population pressure and common property or open access regimes in and
around natural areas, as well as an expansion of commercial agriculture, aquaculture and forestry often
encouraged by indebted and foreign exchange poor governments (see e.g. Ehrlich 1988, Ostrom 1990,
Hardin 1968, Baland and Plattau 1996, Brown and Pearce 1994, Barbier et al 1994, Shah 1995,
Granlund and Lindén 1995, Taylor 1998, Perrings et al 1995, McNeely 1995).
2
diminishing livelihood opportunities for local people who often depend directly on
these areas for survival.
Parallel to the reduction of natural areas in the tropics, a soaring demand in the
industrialised countries for nature-based vacations has taken place over the last
decade.
Tourism is now the biggest and most rapidly growing industry in the world and the
nature-based segment of the market is increasing the most rapidly (TES 1998, WTO
1997). The general move away from more conventional mass tourism to nature-based
tourism is according to de Albuquerque and McElroy (1995) fuelled by three primary
factors:
(1) Growing disenchantment with the cumulative crowding, cultural disruption and
ecosystem degradation associated with mass tourism (Smith and Eadington 1992);
(2) The world-wide environmentalists’ call for sustainable development, particularly
in DCs (de Kadt 1990); and
(3) An increasing demand among select vacationers for pristine natural and cultural
experiences (Johnson 1990).
An alternative to the conventional tourism that has been much discussed the last
decade is so-called ‘ecotourism’.4 This concept was embraced with much euphoria to
start with, but implementing ‘green’ ideas in tourism has proved harder than expected.
The tourism industry has jumped on the green bandwagon, and critical voices say that
despite the concept’s highly desirable theoretical properties, its introduction has in
practice only led to a ‘greenwashing’ of traditional ‘mainstream tourism’ and thus an
excuse to go on more or less like before (Cousteau 1997, Ross and Wall 1999,
McLaren 1997, Harrison and Husbands 1996).
Even projects which genuinely pursue ecotourism have experienced problems, and
most studies of ecotourism projects have arrived at the same conclusion: the potential
4
The concept of ‘ecotourism’, its history and various definitions will be discussed in section 2.2.2.
3
for being a much needed ‘win-win’ strategy5 in sustainable development is there, but
has in most cases yet to be realised.6 The actual interface between tourism and
conservation has in practice often been one of coexistence moving towards conflict,
rather than symbiotic (Ceballos-Lascuráin 1996).
Despite the obstacles experienced, international tourism to developing countries could
be a means of redistributing economic resources from industrialised countries if
managed sustainably. This could have the effect of mitigating the socio-economic
situation both at a local and national scale and contributing to biodiversity
conservation (Gössling 1999, Budowski 1976, Salm 1985, Boo 1990, Stewart 1993).7
Why has it so far proved difficult to realise ecotourism’s alleged potential? Is the
concept fundamentally flawed, or is it the way it is being applied in practice, that
hinders the success of such projects? What are the conditions that need to be met
ecotourism to achieve its dual, and ambitious, objective?
1.2 Aims and motivations
The overall aim of this dissertation is to investigate the existing and potential role of
ecotourism in the conservation of the coral reefs and for the livelihoods of local
people in the Wakatobi Marine National Park in Indonesia. The specific question
posed is whether ecotourism is playing an important role. If so, why, and if not,
whether ecotourism, provided certain conditions are fulfilled, has the potential to play
an important mediating role in the near future. In the analysis of this question
particularly economic and environmental aspects will be treated in depth, while socio-
5Se
e.g. the WB Report ‘Development and the Environment’ (1992) for a general discussion of ‘winwin’ strategies, or Cater and Lowman (1994) and Cater (1995) for a discussion focussing on
(eco)tourism.
6See e.g. Boo (1990), Ceballos-Lascuráin (1996, 1993), Brandon (1996), Wells and Brandon (1992),
Wells (1997), Ross and Wall (1999), Wall (1993).
7As pointed out by Wall (1997b), WCED failed in their report to appreciate the potentially important
role of tourism in sustainable development.
4
cultural aspects will be touched upon more briefly.8 This is done because the study is
particularly concerned with the potential explanatory link between economic
incentives for local people from ecotourism and their contribution to conservation.
The marine environment as represented by the Wakatobi Marine Park is chosen partly
because of personal interest in coral reef conservation, but more importantly because
marine ecotourism, and particularly recreational SCUBA diving9, have been little
studied as a tool for sustainable development in coastal areas. Such a study is not only
potentially important in itself since most coral reef areas are desperately in need of
economically viable, non-extractive activities to take some of the exploitative pressure
off the reefs, but can, hopefully, also draw on the growing body of knowledge in the
fields of biodiversity conservation, ecotourism and sustainable development and
contribute some fresh insights through this, somewhat less studied medium (the sea).10
Indonesia is in many ways a very interesting location for such a study. In economic
terms Indonesia is a developing country11, albeit with higher economic growth figures
than most countries in Southeast Asia, until struck by the Asian financial crisis in the
autumn of 1997 (McLeod 1998, Pincus and Ramli, 1998, Evans 1998).
Under President Suharto’s ‘New Order’ regime from 1967-1998 (and through a short
phase with Habibie as President12), international tourism was seen as a central element
in the development of the peripheral areas (Hampton and Hampton 1998). The
tourism growth was, however, envisaged as a ‘mass-tourism’ type with ‘golden
hordes’13 flocking to large hotels along Indonesia’s many beaches.14
8It
is realised, as pointed out by Mieczkowski (1995:4), that the various aspects are closely intertwined,
and that a disintegrated analysis should not loose sight of the overall picture.
9Recreational SCUBA diving (hereafter only called ‘diving’) is an activity which is gaining rapidly in
popularity every year, and is often carried out on coral reefs (see e.g. Tabata 1992, Dignam 1990).
10Most studies of ecotourism have focused on terrestrial environments, and particularly rainforests and
mountain regions (see e.g. central works by Boo (1990), Wells and Brandon (1992), Brandon (1996),
Cater and Longman (1994), Whelan (1991)).
11Indonesia is classified in the ‘lower-middle’ income group in WB’s most recent report (WB 1998).
12A new president
13This
has not yet been appointed following the early June general election.
term is taken from Turner and Ash (1975).
traditional tourism development strategy is in described by Wall (1997b:485): ‘..the emphasis of
many Third World governments is [unfortunately] not predominantly on the poor but on large scale
projects, both in tourism and other economic sectors.’ See also Wall (1997a) and Go (1997).
14This
5
Some would argue, after evaluating the many tourism development projects in
Southeast Asia, that this type of tourism has to be brought within sustainable limits
(Wong 1998)15, and increasingly be substituted and supplemented by a growth in
ecotourism. At present ecotourism is in its infancy in Indonesia, even though it is
widely acknowledged that it has a large potential there (Ratnapala 1994, Pratiwi 1993,
Supriadi pers.com). This current situation, where a possible change in tourism focus is
under way (Cochrane 1996, 1993), makes an early study of ecotourism in Indonesia
interesting and important.
Indonesia is characterised by biologists as a ‘mega-diversity country’ (Mittermeier and
Werner 1990), and in terms of marine biodiversity Indonesia’s archipelago is
unparalleled.16 The shallow areas surrounding the more than 17,000 islands, with
some 75,000km2 of coral, hold approximately one-eighth of the world’s coral reefs
(Cesar et al 1997, Cesar 1996). These reefs form the core of the livelihood for
hundreds of thousands of Indonesia’s subsistence fishermen, and are a source of food
security in times of agricultural hardship. Currently, however, only 29% of these reefs
are in good condition17, and their quality is declining rapidly mainly as a result of
human activities (Cesar ibid., Chadwick 1999, Suharsono 1994).
Against this background an analysis that can help to shed light on the processes which
are driving the coral reef degradation in Indonesia, and contribute to finding ways of
conserving the remaining reefs can be seen as important.
1.3 Specific objectives
The existing and potential role of ecotourism in conservation and local people's
livelihoods in the Wakatobi Marine National Park will be analysed through focusing
15Places
in South East Asia such as Kuta, Bali (the most studied tourism destination in Indonesia) and
Phuket and Pattaya in Thailand are by some regarded as grim examples of ‘overdeveloped’ and
(therefore) environmentally (and culturally) degraded tourism destinations (see e.g. Wall 1996, 1997c,
Jenkins 1997, Knight et al 1997, McCarthy 1994, Hussey 1989, Parnwell 1993, Wong 1995).
16 ‘The highest [marine] species diversity occurs in the Indonesian archipelago and decreases radially
from there’ (Gray 1997:153). As an example, Indonesian seas contain around 25% of the earth’s fish
species (Bappenas 1993).
17 Cesar et al (1997:345) use ‘more than 50% live coral cover’ as a proxy.
6
on a set of specific objectives that together logically lead to fulfilling the main aim, as
somewhat generally stated in the previous section. These specific objectives can be
summarised as:
(1) Identification of conservation needs
Describe the present physical characteristics of the Park environment in terms of
biodiversity, coral reef communities, fish stocks etc., and identify the current rate of
human induced change of the environment by local people and outsiders. State the
official objectives of the Protected Area, and give an assessment of whether the
current impacts on the park environment are opposed to these objectives, and can be
regarded as unsustainable.18
(2) Description of local people’s livelihoods
Describe the number and distribution of local people within the Park, and identify the
main sources of livelihoods for different people, particularly as these relate to the
Park’s marine resources.
(3) Analysis of tourism and its potential19
Describe the current and past number and distribution of tourists in the Wakatobi
Marine National Park, the accommodation and tourist facilities available, the main
activities in which tourists are engaged, and the means of transport to the Park.
Investigate the marketing plans and future prospects of the existing tourism operators
within the Park and assess the probability of the establishment of new operators.
Estimate in light of this local information and the trends in tourism arrivals to
Indonesia a likely trend of ecotourism growth to the Wakatobi in the near future.
Central to this objective is also to identify economic impacts of tourism operators on
the local economy, and assess in the light of (1) as well as the requirements usually
included in the definition of ‘ecotourism’, whether the current type of tourism in the
initial conclusion that must be arrived at for the study of ecotourism as ‘win-win’ strategy in the
Wakatobi Marine National Park to be relevant
19When looking at possible trends in tourist arrivals to the Park, this study is only considering
exogenous factors. The aim is not to determine an optimal visitor number, and recommend (foreign
funded) ecotourism (conservation) projects to be established.
18An
7
Park qualifies as ecotourism.
Important for this evaluation is the concept of
recreational carrying capacity, which will be introduced in section 2.1.2.
(4) Analysis and comparison of tourist operators’ views on opportunities and
obstacles for running tourism businesses
The objective here is to draw on the experience of tourism operators in the Park to
identify favourable conditions that need to be in place for the operators to succeed in
pursuing ecotourism.
(5) Assessment of potential obstacles and constraints for ecotourism
Identify and describe potential obstacles to the success of ecotourism in the Park.
Issues of Park Management, impacts from outsiders, lack of local participation and
resource use institutions, and insufficient local education and tourism skills can a
priori be believed to constitute important constraints.
A central assumption which is often taken for granted in many (community-based)
conservation projects, is that if alternative livelihoods are introduced and accepted by
local people, environmentally detrimental practices will be brought to a halt.20 This
assumption will be analysed in the context of the Wakatobi.
(6) Overall assessment of the existing and potential role of ecotourism in the
Wakatobi
Assess in light of (1)-(5) whether tourism to the Wakatobi Marine Park is currently
fulfilling the aims of ecotourism, that is, working as a ‘win-win strategy’, or if not,
whether it could be in the near future.
Fulfilling the objectives (1)-(5) will give a necessary, and hopefully as far as possible,
sufficient knowledge base to reach at the overall aim, (6).
20Michael
Wells has often pointed this out (Wells 1995, Wells 1993,Wells and Brandon 1992, Brandon
and Wells 1993). See also Western et al (1994) and Dixon and Sherman (1990).
8
In addition to (6), as briefly mentioned in the previous section, I hope to extend the
results from this case study to a somewhat broader ecotourism and conservation
context.
1.4 Methodology
This dissertation has been developed using a range of different techniques.
Firstly, a comprehensive literature review in the broad fields of terrestrial and marine
tourism, biodiversity conservation, ecotourism and ecological economics21 was
carried out. Lessons important for the study of ecotourism and coral reefs were also
drawn from (sustainable) development theory, as well as biological and ecological
journals and books.
Secondly, a number of grey literature reports such as policy documents, NGO reports,
student’s dissertations, tourism publications, internet publications and the like about
the area of study were carefully examined.
Thirdly, a combination of qualitative and quantitative primary data were collected
through structured and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders who could be
considered as having first hand experience of the situation in the Wakatobi.22 More
than 60 interviews were carried out, some in depth for up to two hours, and others of a
shorter and more informal kind.23 Interviews of tourist operators were carried out with
the aim of collecting a combination of quantitative and qualitative data through a
standardised questionnaire, while all other interviews were mainly semi-structured
aiming for qualitative information. The questionnaire used for the structured
interviews with tourist operators is presented in appendix 2.
21Particularly the
22In
recent theories of ecological goods and services (and their value).
this process both de Vaus (1991), Converse and Presser (1986), and Dixon and Leach (1984) were
consulted.
23Please consult appendix 1 for the names and affiliations of the people interviewed.
9
The length of the field study was six weeks in June and July 1999, during which five
weeks were spent in the Wakatobi Marine National Park at the tourist operator
Operation Wallacea’s (Op Wal’s) base on Hoga, and one in Bau Bau and Kendari.24
Due to time constraints the main focus was placed on people involved directly in the
tourism industry in the area, as well as NGO workers, Park Managers and researchers.
The local people as represented by Bajau and Wakatobi people25 were not directly
interviewed by the author. However, assistance in interviewing Bajau in the village of
Sampela was obtained from an MSc. student who at the time of my stay was spending
ten days doing research on local fisheries there.26 Conducting meaningful interviews
with local people, which originally was part of my research plan, was made difficult
by several factors in addition to the obvious time constraint. Particular difficulties
included long travel distances between islands and villages, the tendency of rough
seas in July, the language barrier27, and the difficulty in obtaining official documents
of number, distribution, names and socio-economic status of people living in different
villages (enabling meaningful statistical inference).
Personal observations, both of an independent and participatory kind28, were
conducted all through the duration of my stay. These included both direct observations
of how tourist operators were running their daily businesses, the tourism product
being offered, quality of dive sites and the general environment etc., as well as
observations of local people’s way of life, the standard of housing and other facilities,
the park managers daily tasks, number of blasts on reefs, frequency of fishing
activities on the reefs and the like. As a rule all information obtained during my field
trip was confirmed through other sources, as far as this was practically possible.
24Kendari
is the capital of the SE Sulawesi Province. Bau Bau is the capital of the Buton regency.
about the people of Wakatobi will be given in chapter 4. The Bajau are often called ‘the sea
gypsies’ of Indonesia, while the Wakatobians are all the non-Bajau in the Park.
25Details
26Gerald
Hovis of the Michigan State University, USA.
appropriate translator was not available at the time, partly due to the fact that very few Bajau
speak Bahasa (the official Indonesian language), but also due to logistical mismanagement on the part
of Operation Wallacea.
28I was living and working with ecotourists (volunteers) and staff at Op Wal’s base on Hoga Island. Op
Wal provided food and accommodation, diving facilities and transport around the Wakatobi.
27An
10
In addition to the above mentioned research techniques it can be emphasised that the
author can claim to have a certain ‘pre-knowledge’29 of ecotourism in general, and
diving in particular, from lengthy visits to ecotourism locations in East-Africa, the
Caribbean and South America.
A discussion of potential limitations in methodology, as well as other constraining
factors will be undertaken in a later section, after a more thorough literature review,
the background of the study area and the results of my research have been presented.
1.5 Outline
The outline of this dissertation is as follows. The subsequent chapter starts out by
briefly describing the history of tourism as a phenomenon, its importance in the world
economy and the increasing impact in natural areas of DCs. The chapter goes on to
present a standard framework for analysing the role of tourism; through its impacts in
relation to the recreational carrying capacity. The second part of the chapter is devoted
to defining the concepts of ‘biodiversity conservation’ and ‘ecotourism’, and raises
difficult issues in operationalising them.
Chapter 3 brings the discussion of tourism and its impacts underwater to the unique
ecosystem of coral reefs. The value of reefs for human livelihoods and enjoyment,
represented by the ecological goods and services they offer is briefly discussed.
Anthropogenic threats to coral reefs, particularly in Southeast Asia, are then
described. The chapter ends with a short overview of environmental impacts of dive
tourism on coral reefs and an emphasis of the need for keeping these within the
recreational carrying capacity.
Chapter 4 describes the background to the study area in terms of geographical
location, physical environment, the people and the newly assigned legal status as a
Marine Park.
29As
termed by Pagdin (1989:248).
11
Chapter 5 presents the results of the research relating to special objectives 1 and 2 in
section 1.3, while chapter 6 deals with the part of the research aiming to fulfil the
remaining objectives 3, 4 and 5.
Chapter 8 concludes by giving and overall assessment of whether tourism to the
Wakatobi is working as a ‘win-win’ strategy or, if not, whether it could be in the near
future.
12
Chapter 2
Tourism and the Environment30
This chapter starts out in section 2.1.1 by presenting a short history of tourism as a
phenomenon, and illustrating with the latest figures the potential magnitude of
tourism impacts, with a particular emphasis on nature-based tourism.31 A
conventional approach to categorising impacts of tourism and deciding whether these
are within the relevant carrying capacities is elaborated in the subsequent section.
Section 2.2 is devoted to defining the two concepts of ‘biodiversity conservation’ and
‘ecotourism’. By presenting a discussion of these definitions now (rather than right at
the outset), it is hoped that the subtle difficulties involved in operationalising the
concepts can be fully appreciated.
The aim of this chapter, therefore, is not to present an exhaustive review of the
tourism literature, but rather to extract aspects from the conventional tourism writings
as well as the more recent ecotourism literature32 which can serve as a conceptual
framework as well as a point of reference for the analysis of the Wakatobi Marine
National Park.
30
The emphasis will be on international (as opposed to domestic) tourism to DCs. This is mainly
because nature-based tourism has a much wider appeal in Western countries. The term ‘environment’ is
in the tourism literature usually defined as both the ecosphere, i.e., atmosphere, lithosphere,
hydrosphere and biosphere as well as human (economic and socio-cultural) factors. E.g. Liu and
Sheldon (1987) adhere to this broad concept.
31 It will later in this chapter become clear that all ecotourism is nature-based, but nature-based tourism
is not all ecotourism. Central to bringing more of the nature-based tourism into the ‘eco’-category is
limiting environmental impacts and nurturing local economic impacts.
32Ecotourism is discussed in a whole range of interdisciplinary journals.
13
2.1 Tourism and its impacts
2.1.1 History and growth
Tourism is not a recent phenomenon. The term ‘tourism’ in the sense of ‘travel for
pleasure or out of curiosity’ made its first appearance in the Oxford English
Dictionary in the early 19th century, but the origins of this activity goes much further
back. Mankind has always had a desire for travel to distant and exotic places, in
Europe at least as early as the Greeks around year 500 BC (Ceballos-Lascuráin 1996,
Hinch and Butler 1996), and in Egypt since ancient times (Sigaux 1966).
These early seeds have grown through phases, and technological inventions
(especially the train and jet plane) and soaring wealth in the Western world (mostly
after WW-II), have made travel and tourism to nearly every part of the world
accessible to a steadily increasing number of people. In 1997, according to the World
Tourism Organisation, there were more than 595 million international travellers, and
tourism is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world (WTO 1998). Tourist
arrivals are predicted to grow by an average 4.3% a year over the next two decades,
while receipts from international tourism will climb by 6.7% (ibid.). Of this growth in
international tourist arrivals an increasing share is predicted for developing countries.
As will be discussed in subsection 2.2.2, it is somewhat arbitrary how the total figures
are split into tourism types, e.g., the line between nature tourism and other types of
tourism is not always clear-cut. An attempt by WTO estimates that nature tourism
generates 7% of all international travel expenditure (cited in Lindberg 1997).33
WRI found that while tourism overall has been growing at an annual rate of
approximately 4%, nature travel is increasing at an annual rate between 10%-30%
(Reingold 1993).34
In the case of Southeast Asia the growth forecasts are above world average for all
countries in the region, and even though badly hit by the Asian financial crisis in the
33This
is supported by Doggart and Doggart (1996:76): ‘Nature-related tourism world-wide is
generating nearly 10% of international travel revenue, and this share is expected to double by 2010’.
WWF (1995) operates with a figure of 15% for the mid 1990s.
14
autumn of 1997, WTTC concluded recently that the region has emerged strongly from
the crisis (Qu and Zhang 1997, WTTC 1999). Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are
in the top league, with Indonesia and Philippines as fast developing tourist
destinations (Hitchcock et al 1993, Hall 1994). To illustrate, tourist arrivals to
Indonesia grew by 19% annually in the period from 1984 to 1994 (Doggart and
Doggart 1996:74).
With this background tourism is an activity which will have increasingly large and
far-reaching economic, environmental and socio-cultural impacts across the world,
unless it is carefully planned and managed. This pressure will be particularly evident
in natural areas, but such an increase in demand can, as has been suggested in chapter
1, also constitute a real opportunity for conservation efforts to pay off financially in
these areas.
2.1.2 Impacts and carrying capacity
Even though tourism as a phenomenon is relatively old, the academic study of tourism
is recent. The first academic journals pertaining specifically to tourism date from the
mid 1970s.
A common way of analysing the role of tourism in a geographically specified area is
to study the different impacts of tourism. The diversity of tourism’s impacts may be
simplified by grouping them into three main categories: economic, environmental and
socio-cultural (fig. 2.1).35 This grouping is useful for analytical purposes, but as
indicated by figure 2.1 these various impacts overlap. As justified in the introduction
the emphasis will be on the environmental and economic impacts in the analysis of the
role of tourism in the Wakatobi. These two categories of impacts will first briefly be
explained before the concept of ‘carrying capacity’ is introduced.
34The
majority of these nature travel destinations are situated in developing countries.
authors sometimes call this categories by different names. In the language of Mathieson and
Wall (1984) the impacts are ‘economic, physical and social’.
35Different
15
Figure 2.1: The interaction between tourism impacts (Source: Adapted from
Mieczkowski (1995:4)).
Economic
Socio-cultural
Environmental
Economic Impacts
The market for nature tourists is located in Europe and North America, but also
increasingly Japan, and important initial economic impacts are represented by
international flights and the involvement of travel agents in the home country. This
type of spending is likely to remain in full in these countries.36 The economic impacts
in the host country, which is of particular interest here, can be grouped into three
categories: (i) direct; (ii) indirect; and (iii) induced (Wells 1997, Stynes 1998a).
The direct impacts are those arising from the initial spending, such as money spent at
a restaurant, in a local shop, money exchange bureaus, banks, accommodation etc.
These businesses buy goods and services (inputs) from other businesses, thereby
generating indirect impacts. In addition, the employees involved in these economic
activities spend in turn part of their wages to buy various goods and services, thereby
generating induced impacts.37
36
Unless the airline or (more rarely) the travel agent is owned by the destination country.
and induced impacts are sometimes collectively called secondary effects (impacts). How
direct tourism expenditure translates into secondary effects in a region is captured by the concept of
(sales) multiplier (Archer 1984, Stynes 1998a).
37Indirect
16
These impacts are usually estimated by applying Input-Output analysis, a method
which is complex and very ‘data-consuming’ (Bergstrom et al 1990).38 Since many
developing countries have poor economic data, particularly for rural regions,
estimation of economic impacts of tourism in DCs is at an early stage.
From a local perspective it is important that the tourist expenditure does not leak out
of the country, or preferably the local community adjacent e.g. to a protected area.
Ecotourism is often introduced to nature areas which have been set up as PAs, a
process which often involves moving local people, and always involves restricting
their access to natural resources within the PA.39
It is generally believed that if the economic impacts in terms of local employment
directly in ecotourism businesses, as street vendors (e.g. selling cultural artefacts like
carvings), as park guards etc., and general tourist expenditure for park fees,
accommodation, food etc., do not represent an economically viable and socially
acceptable alternative for local people, ecotourism is not likely to achieve the
development and conservation objectives.40 In other words, the larger parts of the
potential benefits from ecotourism to a PA must generally flow to those who bear the
costs.
The experiences so far from the economic impacts of nature tourism in different
developing countries are relatively bleak in this respect. Studies from Nepal, Thailand
and ‘the typical developing country’ show a percentage leaking of tourist expenditure
away from the host country of 70%, 60% and 55% respectively (Lindberg et al 1997,
Powell and Chalmers 1995). More than 90% of tourism spending is thought to leak
away from communities near most nature tourism sites, and captured by commercial
tourism operators in the richer countries and in the larger cities of the host countries
(Lindberg 1991, Brandon 1996, Sinclair 1991, Milne 1990).
38
See also e.g. Briassoulis (1991), Johnson and Moore (1993), Zhou et al (1997), Stynes (1998b,c). An
alternative method to the Input-Output analysis is the social accounting matrix (SAM) interestingly
applied by e.g. Wagner (1997) to a rural region of Brazil.
39 PAs would not ‘exist or be necessary if..needs of people did not conflict with those of wild species
and natural ecosystems’ (Caldecott 1996:1).
40 See e.g. Wells (1992, 1995), Shah (1995), Dixon and Sherman (1990), Sherman and Dixon (1991),
Wells and Brandon (1992), Bookbinder et al (1998), Western et al (1994), Cater (1997).
17
Figure 2.2 gives an illustration of where the tourist expenditure flows from a typical
package tour41 and what share accrues to the DC (in this case 20-40%):
Figure 2.2: Flow of money spent for a package tour (Source: Gössling 1999)
Wall (1993:4) captures the inherent difficulty in generating income from ecotourism
locally well by the statement: ‘The places which are likely to be of most interest to
ecotourist are relatively remote, with rudimentary infrastructure, and little for sale
except experiences. By definition, it is difficult to spend money in the wilderness!’
There are, however, as will be shown in a later section, ways to capture locally a
larger share of the tourists’ total expenditure.
Other potential (positive and negative) economic impacts of nature tourism that have
been mentioned in the literature include:

41
local price inflation (making certain goods beyond reach for locals);
The by far most common form of vacation is the package tour (Wood and House 1991).
18

tourism employment ‘crowding out’ other important activities (such as food
production);

some local communities can get too dependent on tourism revenue, making
livelihoods vulnerable in low season (i.e. the local economy is not adequately
diversified);

investments in infrastructure related to tourism development may benefit local
populations;
To sum up, the experience from many ecotourism projects in PAs shows that the bulk
of the costs involved with establishing the PA (i.e. the loss of local access to natural
resources) seems to accrue to the local populations, whereas the benefits from
ecotourism have so far mainly been captured by the ecotourists themselves (as
valuable experiences42) and by the ecotourism businesses, typically in a Western
country or in a larger city of the host country. The result of this ‘repatriation’ of values
from the PA has more often than not been that the local resource exploitation has
continued more or less unchecked. Ways of strengthening local economic
conservation incentives (by increasing positive economic impacts) and local
involvement in ecotourism particularly in the context of the Wakatobi Marine
National Park will be further discussed in chapter 6.
Environmental impacts
Tourism impacts on the environment in general, and protected areas (marine or
terrestrial) in particular, can be broadly classified in two categories: direct and
indirect. Direct impacts are caused by the presence of tourists, indirect impacts by the
infrastructure created in connection with tourism activities.
Ceballos-Lascuráin (1996) classifies the direct tourism impacts on the environment as
follows: impacts on (i) geological exposures, minerals and fossils; (ii) soils; (iii) water
An interpretation of this, in the language of economics, is that foreign ecotourists often ‘take home’ a
large consumer surplus, i.e. a surplus that could have been collected locally through e.g. higher entrance
fees. This view is supported by many studies (see e.g. Navrud and Mungatana 1994, Tobias and
Mendelsohn 1991, Maille and Mendelsohn 1993).
42
19
resources; (iv) vegetation; (v) animal life; (vi) sanitation; (vii) aesthetics of the
landscape; (viii) cultural environment (i.e. archaeological sites).
Estimations of these impacts, even for small-scale ecotourism projects, are highly
uncertain, because

there is a lack of baseline data for the environmental ‘pretourist’ situation;43

environmental change occurs naturally, making tourism-induced change more
difficult to quantify (i.e. ecosystems are dynamic)44;

some impacts only become evident in the long term; and

ecological systems are inherently unpredictable and chaotic.45
Most studies have considered the impacts of ecotourism on the physical environment
to be negative (Mieczkowski 1995, Hunter and Green 1995, Buhalis and Fletcher
1995).46 Some ecotourism, however, has positive impacts (such as tours cleaning
trails or voluntary conservation work, or indirectly through raising political and local
environmental awareness). Mieczkowski (ibid.) argues that the maybe most important
(indirect) positive impact of tourism is that it precludes other, and often more
environmentally damaging activities.
Even if ecotourists are often environmentally aware they will generate some negative
impacts, because, as Wall (1994) pointed out47

ecotourists often go to environmentally fragile areas, such as coral reefs, alpine
and arid areas;

visitation may occur during sensitive periods, such as during breeding/hatching
periods;
43This
44See
45The
is often lacking for marine biotas (Warnken and Buckley 1998:2).
e.g. Savage (1993), Edington and Edington (1986).
difficulty involved in using ecology to predict human ecological impacts (and conserving nature)
has been pointed out by Scrader-Frechette and McCoy (1993). See also Pickett et al (1997).
46It is generally agreed that from the purely ecological point of view tourism’s negative effects on the
environment substantially prevail over the positive ones (Mieczkowski 1995:8).
47See also Juss et al (1990).
20

visitation by ecotourists may eventually lead to mass tourism at the site, such that
the ultimate impact is much greater than the initial impact (see Butler’s much
discussed ‘life cycle model’ (Butler 198048)); and

visitation may cause impacts not related to the local protected area, such as the
consumption of aeroplane fuel (Gössling 1999, Flognfeldt 1997, Mittler 1998).
Carrying capacity (CC)
The concept of ‘carrying capacity’ is controversial49 when brought into the spheres of
the social sciences.50 In tourism studies the concept has many names: tourist CC,
recreational CC or total CC. The most well known interpretation is that by Pearce
(1989:169):
‘Carrying capacity is commonly considered as the threshold of tourist activity beyond
which facilities are saturated (physical carrying capacity), the environment is degraded
(environmental carrying capacity) or visitor enjoyment is diminished (psychological
carrying capacity).’
Other aspects which have been included in the concept are economic CC51, the host
population’s level of tolerance (Hunter and Green 1995) and managerial CC.52
The use of CC in tourism studies came as a result of increasing congestion in National
Parks in the USA in the early 1970s, as well as increasing environmental degradation
following the general boom in visitor numbers to many natural areas. It became
evident that there is a limit not only to what the environment can take of human
48The
idea that tourism develops in a community by a series of stages from initial discovery through
growth to decline was first proposed by Christaller (1963). Butler (1980) built on this to create a more
detailed theory. His stages of development for a tourist destination includes exploration, involvement,
development, consolidation, stagnation, decline and (perhaps) rejuvenation.
49See e.g. the very recent discussion of the concept in the journal Environmental Conservation
(Lindberg and McCool 1998, Brown et al 1998).
50CC is generally used in ecological analysis to describe the population of a given species that can be
supported indefinitely in a defined habitat without irreversibly altering the habitat (Begon et al 1996,
Brown et al 1997).
51O’Reilly (1986:295) as cited in Johnson and Thomas (199x): ‘the ability to absorb tourist functions
without squeezing out desirable local activities.’
52For a definition of this concept see Stankey (1981:32) or Mieczkowski (1995:330).
21
presence and recreational activity, but also to what individuals (and the host
population) can accept of congestion for their enjoyment not to be impaired (e.g.
Freeman and Haveman 1977, Fischer and Krutilla 1972).
For many years there was a search for ‘the magic number’53 of tourists for different
natural areas, a task that only proved impossible, for ecological and human
psychological reasons (Stankey 1982, Shelby and Heberlein 1986). Today this task is
no longer considered meaningful, but even so, most authors find the concept of CC
useful in tourism planning (Kuss et al 1993).
A problem with the concept, in addition to the difficulty in operationalising it, is the
fact that when the environmental CC has been reached, it may already be to late for
the ecosystem to recover, i.e. once passed the threshold, irreversible change (damage)
has occurred. It is like pulling a rubber band.
This is why some authors have
suggested supplementing (or replacing altogether) CC with concepts such as limits of
acceptable change (LAC) and the recreation opportunity spectrum54, or optimal visitor
numbers.55 Any such concepts will though, inevitably, be imprecise and lend
themselves to different and subjective interpretations.
Agreeing with the majority of the authors in the field that CC is a useful concept,
despite its ambiguity, I will in the following use a version of the recreational CC,
adapted from Mieczkowski (1995)(fig. 2.3):
Figure 2.3: Categories of carrying capacity (Source: Mieczkowski (1995:311))
Recreational
Carrying Capacity
Natural
Physical
53‘The
Social
Ecological
magic number [that does not exist]’ (Wall 1982).
See e.g. Stankey and McCool (1984), Stankey et al (1985), Driver et al (1987).
55One could e.g. use optimisation techniques from economics where the optimal number of visitors is
determined where marginal damage (costs) equal marginal benefits (in monetary terms).
54
22
The physical and the ecological CC constitute the natural CC, which together with the
social CC make up the two components of the recreational CC.56 The way one can
determine the recreational CC is to find the binding constraint (restricting CC). As
pointed out by Mieczkowski (1995:328):
‘in most cases, an especially with respect to resource-based recreation, the [social]
threshold of use is lower for an individual tourist or resident, than is the ecological
threshold, although in fragile ecosystems [..] the opposite may be true’.57
The ecological and social CCs are illustrated in figures 2.4 and 2.5, respectively:
Figure 2.4: Model of acceptable ecological variation in wilderness (Source: modified
from Hendee et al (1990) as presented by Mieczkowski (1995:339))
physical and social CCs are identical to the components in Pearce’s definition (1989, op.cit.),
while the ecological CC is called ‘environmental’ CC by Pearce.
57This is also supported by Wilson and Laarman (1987:1) (as cited in Valentine (1992)) in a similar
statement: ‘nature-oriented tourism usually is constrained by low social carrying capacity. The natureoriented tourist tends to perceive crowding as a problem, not tolerating large numbers of other natureoriented tourists’.
56The
23
Figure 2.5: Model of acceptable variation in wilderness experience (Source: modified
from Hendee et al (1990) as presented by Mieczkowski (1995:340))
The ecological CC will vary for different habitats, in time, and for different types of
recreational uses. The social CC depends on socio-economic, cultural, demographic,
and psychological characteristics of the recreationists. These characteristics differ with
ethnic, social, and age groups, and with the individual.58 In addition to these
characteristics, the recreational CC can be affected (increased) by human management
(e.g. through dispersing tourists over a wider area) (Steele 1995:33). I will in chapter
6 use the concepts presented and explained above, coupled with qualitative data
collected in the Wakatobi to analyse possible CCs for diving.
58South
and East Asians for example, have a higher tolerance (threshold) to crowding than the general
Westerner (Cochrane 1996).
24
2.2 Biodiversity conservation and ecotourism defined
This section will briefly define and discuss the two central concepts of ‘biodiversity
conservation’ and ‘ecotourism’.
2.2.1 Biodiversity conservation
The term biological diversity (biodiversity for short) came into use only in the last
decade (Wilson 1988), and can be defined as :
‘The wealth of life on earth, the millions of plants, animals and micro-organisms, the
genes they contain, and the intricate ecosystems they help build into the living
environment. Biological diversity is simply the end result of 4 billion years of
evolution’ (WWF 1989 cited Barbier et al 1994).
Biodiversity is important to human beings in itself, for example through direct harvest
of a particular species of animal or plant, for aesthetic reasons, or in a more indirect
way through the functioning of ecosystems that provide invaluable services to Man's
existence.59 These latter ‘life support’ services may be regarded as the most important
anthropocentric reason for conserving biodiversity (Perrings et al 1995).60 There is
great uncertainty about the importance of the level of biodiversity for ecosystem
functioning, but recent theories suggest that the greater the species diversity within an
ecosystem, the greater its health61. Still, ecologists are at present far from knowing, for
most ecosystems, how many and which species are crucial for the ecosystem’s
health.62
59Daily
(1997) describes these ecosystems services in short as supporting life, supplying materials and
energy, and absorbing waste products. The services provided by coral reef ecosystems will be presented
in section 3.2.
60Many scholars both philosophers (e.g. deep ecologists) and biologists argue that biodiversity (nature)
should be conserved regardless of human considerations (Naess 1973, Rolston 1988, Ehrlich and
Ehrlich 1992). Meeting human needs is, however, what the concept of sustainable development is all
about (WCED 1987). A discussion of this controversy is beyond the scope of this dissertation, but an
interesting and recent example of a conservation vs. development conflict (‘kicked off’ by Rolston
1996) is published in the journal Environmental Values 7 1998: 291-357.
61See e.g. Chapin et al (1997), Tilman and Downing (1994), Tilman (1997), Vitousek et al (1997),
Costanza (1997).
62Species which through their removal lead to significant changes spreading throughout the food web
are sometimes referred to as keystone species (Begon et al 1996).
25
Biodiversity is also a very difficult concept to measure objectively in practice (Rodda
1993) - given that only 1.75 million species out of suggested estimates ranging from a
total of 30 - 100 million, are described by science (Morell 1999). Many of these
unknown species are yet to be discovered, particularly in rainforest canopies and coral
reef ecosystems.
Because of this and the scientific uncertainty, it is not an easy task to distinguish
between ‘biodiversity’ and ‘biological resources’ in the discussion of conservation, at
this level of abstraction. From the above discussion it is clear that ‘biodiversity
conservation’ is very difficult to define and operationalise. The term ‘conservation’
will not be used in the sense of ‘preservation’ (of biological ‘status quo’) in this study,
but rather as ‘sustainable use for human benefit’ or ‘wise use or management’ (Tivy
and O’Hare 1981, Hundloe 1990). This ‘use it or lose it’ approach to conservation has
gained popularity among the sustainable development movement in recent years, but
is controversial (Struhsaker 1998).63
The causes of biodiversity loss are usually grouped into (i) proximate: (a) direct
human exploitation of species, and (b) habitat alteration and destruction; and (ii)
underlying: factors that lie behind economic activities which lead to (i)(a) and/or (b).
Habitat alteration and destruction, (b), is by far the most important of the two
proximate causes (Ehrlich 1988), while (a) is a threat to particular species like tiger,
sea turtle, whale, shark and blue fin tuna, to mention but a few.64
2.2.2 Ecotourism
The background section 1.1 gave an overview of the broad role ecotourism is assigned
in the debate about sustainable development. This chapter has so far described the
increase in so called nature-based tourism world-wide and discussed some of the
potential impacts of tourism to natural areas. The rest of this chapter will be devoted
to defining the concept of ‘ecotourism’ and discussing ways of operationalising it.
63Struhsaker’s
critique (particularly meant for rainforest environments) may not be applicable to coral
reef communities, because the zoning systems for marine parks can be more effectively applied for
reconciling human use and conservation.
64 This topic will be further discussed in the chapters 3 and 5.
26
‘Ecotourism’ is a recent concept that has only been in use since the early 1980s.65
Issues of conservation and tourism had however been introduced by Budowski a
decade earlier.66 A whole range of different conceptual definitions have been
proposed in the literature, but no general consensus is established. Some authors still
use the term ‘nature-tourism’ as synonymous to ‘ecotourism’, which will not be
practised in this study. Four of the most commonly used definitions will be cited and
discussed here.67
(1) IUCN (Ceballos-Lascuráin 1993):
‘environmentally responsible travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural
areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and any accompanying cultural features
- both past and present) that promotes conservation, has low visitor impacts, and
provides for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local populations’
(2) The Ecotourism Society (Wood 1991):
‘Purposeful travel to natural areas to understand the culture and the natural history of
the environment, - taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while
producing economic opportunities that make the conservation of natural resources
beneficial to local people’.
(3) Another definition also from TES: (as cited in Orams (1995:5)).
‘...responsible travel that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of
local people.’
(4) Goodwin (1996:288):
‘low impact nature tourism which contributes to the maintenance of species and
habitats either directly through a contribution to conservation and/or indirectly by
providing revenue to the local community sufficient for local people to value, and
therefore protect their wildlife heritage area as a source of income.’
65
Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin claims to have introduced the term in 1983, but Cater (1998:349) gives
that honour to a Finn, Hemmi, who originally used the term in 1982.
66‘Tourism and Environmental Conservation: Conflict, Coexistence or Symbiosis?’ (Budowski 1973).
27
The four definitions above have all roughly the same meaning. There are however
some small differences. The two first definitions express the purpose of the visit as
well as what ecotourism is meant to achieve. (1) includes cultural features, aspects
which most authors separate from ecotourism and place in e.g. the category of cultural
tourism.68 All four definitions emphasise that the main aim of ecotourism is
conservation, and that the means (directly or indirectly) is to create local economic
incentives through revenue generated by the tourism activity. Particularly definitions
(2) and (4) are clear on this, while (1) and (3) use less direct terms like ‘provide[ing]
for beneficially active socio-economic involvement’ and ‘sustaining well-being’,
respectively. It can be argued, however, that Goodwin in his definition commits a
logical fallacy by using the word ‘therefore’.69
Many definitions have tried to incorporate factors such as: who ecotourists are
(typologies), why they are ecotourists (motivations), the scale of tourism (magnitude
of impacts), the quality of services provided etc. This study will focus on the end
result of tourism, that is the function of ecotourism in conservation of natural areas
and local development. The end result is important to nature managers, while tourist
typologies and ecotourist motivations may be more important for marketing purposes
(Blamey 1997:115).
The
functions
of
ecotourism
identified
in
the
definitions
above
are
protection/conservation of nature, production of revenue (for local people) and
education (definition 1 and 2).
Other functional aspects mentioned in the literature include local participation,
capacity building (Pedersen 1991), education of local people (not only tourists),
sustainable management (to some extent overlapping the conservation function)
(Buckley 1994).
67
Other definition can be found in e.g. Blamey 1995, Bottrill and Pearce 1995, Sjoholt 1998, Roe et al
1997, Western 1993, Ziffer 1989, Baez and Rovinski 1992, Lee and Snepenger 1992, Richardson 1993,
Swanson 1992, Young 1992, Valentine 1992)
68 This separation is in many cases not entirely clear cut.
69 The provision of revenue sufficient for local people to value their wildlife may be considered a
necessary condition for them to conserve it. It is, however, not sufficient to guarantee such an outcome
(see section 1.3. and footnote 20).
28
As pointed out by Orams (1995) it is necessary to consider these different dimensions
of ecotourism a long a continuum (than as discrete entities).
The way ecotourism is seen to contribute to sustainable development, as a ‘win-winstrategy’, as described in the previous sections, can be visualised by the following two
figures:
Figure 2.6: Ecotourism protects the environment while contributing to socioeconomic development, and thus strives for sustainability (Source: figure adapted
from Ross and Wall 1999:124)).
ECOTOURISM
Protection of
Natural Areas
Generation
of Revenue
Environmental
Education
Local
Involvement
CONSERVATION
biological diversity
and natural resources
STEWARDSHIP
DEVELOPMENT
economic/
infrastructural growth
LOCAL CONTROL
SUSTAINABILITY
29
Figure 2.7: Biodiversity Loss and Ecotourism (Source: Gössling (1999:304)).
Financial
Contribution
Ecotourism
Safeguarding
ecosystem
services
Conservation
Loss of Biodiversity
Pressure on
ecosystems
Non-consumptive use
Popular or rare animals;
Spectacular landscapes;
Unique attractions
Increasing demand for
nature-based vacations;
High willingness to pay for
conservation
High proportion of
biodiversity located in DCs
Potentials
Developing
Countries
Problems
Population growth;
Workforce pressure;
Lack of capital;
Foreign debts
Industrialized
Countries
The mechanisms at work in the two above figures will be used further in the analysis
of the Wakatobi Marine Park. Chapters 1 and 2 have introduced the general ideas
behind ecotourism as a conservation and development strategy, and the figures sum
these up.
There is a general agreement in the literature that the application of the concept of
ecotourism should not be confined to protected areas only70, but be valid for all
relatively undisturbed natural areas.71
70
Kutay (1989) has argued for this more restrictive geographical definition.
The inclusion of both protected and unprotected natural areas is in line with the more recent
emphasis by the conservation community. Increasing focus has in recent years been given to natural
resource management and sustainable livelihoods outside PAs and their closest vicinity, and it is likely
that PAs will become less important for conservation (Western 1989, Fischer 1995, McNeely et al 1990
in Gossler). The reason for this turn is that it is realised that PAs only can help conserving what has
been called the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of biodiversity (Swanson 1994).
71
30
As can be drawn from the above discussion it has proved difficult to operationalise
conceptual definitions of ecotourism which incorporate (too) many of the dimensions
mentioned above, although some recent attempts have been promising.72
The main emphasis in this study will be on the central elements of conservation
through income generation for local people. These two essential dimensions are
chosen to make it manageable in practice to determine which activities can be
considered as ecotourism. If recreational diving contributes to conservation through
local income generation, this activity will in a particular case, by definition be
ecotourism.73
72
See Blamey (1997) and Bottrill and Pearce (1995).
In most cases diving is regarded as ecotourism (e.g. Belleville 1995, Agardy 1993). Australia, which
is at the forefront of ecotourism research (and an important such destination), includes in policy
documents and research papers this view for the Great Barrier Reef Marine National Park (e.g. Harris
and Leiper 1995). Some authors, however, place diving in different categories.
73
31
Chapter 3
Man and Coral Reefs
‘The unrivalled splendour and wealth of forms and the delicate tints of the coral
structures, the brilliant colours of fishes, clams, sea anemones, worms, crabs, star
fishes and the whole rest of the reef animals are so attractive and interesting that it
seems impossible to give an adequate description of such a profusion of scene and
fascinating beauty.’ (Umbgrove 1939 as cited in Tomascik et al 1997: 113).
After having discussed in general terms the characteristics of ecotourism and its
impacts, it is appropriate to apply this framework to the specific environment of coral
reefs and diving.
This chapter will first very briefly describe what coral reefs are and what ecological
goods and services they provide to Man, and then go on to discussing some of the
human impacts and reasons for the coral reef degradation, with particular reference to
Southeast Asia in general and Indonesia in particular.
3.1 What are coral reefs?
Corals are sea animals. Living coral is a thin veneer, measured in millimetres. Yet this
thin film of living tissue has shaped the face of the Earth by creating limestone
structures that sometimes are as thick as 1,300 m and as long as 2,000 km. The living
coral polyp feeds on plankton and organic matter and secrets calcium carbonate, the
building material for these impressive reef structures.74 About half of the world’s
coastlines are in the tropics and about a third of the tropical coastlines are made of
coral reefs (Birkeland 1997). The exact extent of coral reefs in the world is unknown
and is difficult to estimate. Smith (1978) calculated that there are 600.000 km2 of
32
reefs to a depth of 30m,75 and as mentioned in section 1.2, one-eight of this can be
found in the Indonesian archipelago.
Coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse76 and productive ecosystems in
the world, and the potential for coral reef fisheries has been estimated at 9 million tons
per year (ibid.). This is impressive compared to the estimated total for the world
ocean of 75-100 million tons per year, when its taken into account that coral reefs
cover about 0.2% of the world’s ocean area (Barnes and Chalker 1990).
3.2 The value of ecological goods and services
Coral reefs provide a whole range of ecological goods and services to Man, many of
which are often ignored when compared to alternative commercial uses of reefs.
The four main types of coral reefs are fringing reefs, barrier reefs, atolls and platform
(patch) reefs.77 There are many functional differences among these reef types, and
they are connected in varying degree to other systems, such as mangrove forests,
seagrass beds, and the open ocean. In the following a general presentation of
ecological goods and services of reefs will be given. In a recent paper Moberg and
Folke (1999) divide these goods and services into the following categories (adapted
list):
(1) ECOLOGICAL GOODS
(i) Renewable resources:
(a) Harvest of fish, mussels, crustaceans, sea cucumbers and seaweeds for subsistence
and commercial use as food (Craik et al 1990).
(b) Potentially useful substances for the pharmaceutical industry (Carté 1996).
(c) Seaweed species which can be used in agar production or for manure (Birkeland
ibid.). Coral skeletons may be used in bone graft operations (Spurgeon 1992).
74
See plates 3.1 and 3.2 at the end of this chapter for examples of corals.
Estimates range from 255 000 km2 (Spalding and Grenfell 1997) to 1500 000 km2 (Copper 1994).
76 See e.g. Connell (1978).
77 An explanation of these different types of reefs are given in e.g. Kenchington and Hudson (1988).
75
33
(d) Shells, (giant) clams, corals etc. for souvenirs and jewellery (Tickell 1999, Green
and Shirley 1999).
(e) Reef fish are collected for aquarium trade mainly to the USA and Europe (Barber
and Pratt 1997).
(ii) Mining of reefs:78
(a) Reefs are mined for building materials, and for the production of cement, lime and
mortar (Dulvy et al 1995, Rajasuriya et al 1995, Öhman et al 1993, Putra 1992).
(b) Reefs are thought to hide (below the living structures) enormous quantities of
mineral oils and gas, encouraging mining.
(2) ECOLOGICAL SERVICES
(i) Physical structure services:
(a) Shoreline protection from waves, currents and storms that erode away land.
(b) Coral reefs build up land: Many tropical nations are situated on reef built islands.
(c) Creation of favourable conditions for the growth of sea-grasses and mangrove
ecosystems (Ogden 1988).
(d) Coral reefs help generate the fine sand on tropical beaches – a main attraction for
tourism to such islands (e.g. Richmond 1993).
(ii) Biotic Services:
(a) Biotic services within the ecosystems: coral reefs function as an important
spawning nursery, breeding and feeding areas for a multitude of organisms, as
well as being important in maintaining a vast biodiversity.
(b) Biotic services between ecosystems: Many organisms migrate back and forth
between adjacent ecosystems (such as sea-grass beds and mangroves): e.g. reefs
support the pelagic79 food web.
(iii) Biogeochemical services:
78
On a human time-scale coral from mining is a non-renewable resource.
Marine organisms can be placed in two large categories dependent on whether they live in the water
mass (pelagic) or on or in bottom sediments or rocks/coral (benthic) (Barnes and Hughes 1988).
79
34
Important for the global uptake of CO2, the fixing of nitrogen in nutrient poor
environments, supporting the calcium balance, treatment of released human wastes
etc.
(iv) Information services:
Reefs are being used in pollution monitoring and as climate records.
(v) Social/cultural services:
Coral reefs support recreation such as SCUBA diving and snorkelling. Reefs have
enormous aesthetic value, constitute the livelihoods for millions of people, are a
source of spiritual and cultural values etc.
In order for these goods and services to be taken into account in decisions about
conservation or destruction (simply put), it is often believed that they should be given
a value in monetary terms, so that conservation is comparable with alternative
(commercial) uses (Pearce and Moran 1994, Krutilla 1967). All such valuation studies
will have to be based on human preferences, which are sometimes arbitrary, irrational
or even non-existent.80 Even so, a valuation study may give indications of relative
value of uses. Not many studies have tried to estimate the value of the goods and
services mentioned above, but those which do have generally found large values that
are usually unaccounted for in use-decisions.81
Two examples of significant such values are the values of relatively pristine coral
reefs for recreational use82(Dixon 1993, Dixon et al 1993, 1995), and the value of
shoreline protection from erosion (Spurgeon 1992:533).
In an economic analysis of Indonesian coral reefs Cesar (1996, 1997) found that the
social costs of using reefs as ‘sedimentation sinks’, for mining, blasting, poison
fishing or overfishing exceed the private gains in some cases by a factor of 50.83
80
E.g. Costanza and Folke (1997) point out that there are many ecological goods and services that meet
the criteria of having economic value (they contribute to well-being and are scarce), but for which
humans have not yet developed preferences.
81 See e.g. Spurgeon (1992) or Pendleton (1995).
82 The value of a natural site for human enjoyment and recreation is sometimes termed amenity value.
83 The factor of 50 times is the case where bombs are used for fishing in tourist areas(Cesar ibid.:350)
35
A last point in this section will relate the above mentioned services to biodiversity,
which was defined and discussed in section 2.2.2. Biodiversity in coral reefs and its
influence on maintenance of ecosystem function is highlighted in the literature (Done
et al 1996).
It is thought that the level of biodiversity affects the level of resilience84 positively for
most coral reef ecosystems (Holling 1973, Holling et al 1997), however, with the
qualifier that for these ecosystems much is unknown.
There is no agreement in the literature as to whether reefs are generally fragile or
robust ecosystems (Viles and Spencer 1995: 247). As Grigg (1994) points out, to
some extent these differences are complementary as they refer to different time-scales.
Reefs are often considered ‘robust’ in geological time-scales, and ‘fragile’ for smallscale ‘biological’ processes in space and time (the relevant scale for humans) (Brown
1997).
3.3 Human impacts on coral reefs
This section is closely connected with the previous section in that many of the human
impacts on coral reef environments are inflicted either in the pursuit of harvesting the
(private) value of some of the above mentioned ecological goods and services, or as a
side effect caused by other human activities not directly related to the coral reef85.
Many uses of coral reefs are unsustainable, and in this sense many of the assets of the
reefs are also the main cause of their decline (Weber 1993).
Also natural disturbances are important for the destruction of some reefs, but the
world-wide degradation observed in recent years is due to human disturbance.86
‘The ability to absorb or buffer disturbance’ (Melberg and Folke 1999:226).
See also the general discussion of proximate and underlying causes of biodiversity loss in 2.2.1.
86 An additional factor is that reef ecosystems often show poor recovery when affected by natural
disturbances if they already have been exposed to persistent human disturbances (Brown 1997).
84
85
36
This section will not attempt to present an exhaustive list of all human impacts on
coral reefs but rather review briefly a few impacts that are relevant in connection with
tourism and reef resource-based livelihoods.
The aim of introducing ecotourism to a coral reef area for conservation purposes is to
release the latent recreational values and substitute these for the value of destructive
human activities. In other words, in a conservation sense, the (direct and indirect)
human environmental impacts of the introduced activity (diving) must be less than
those of current uses.
3.3.1 Impacts of current uses
The following are regarded as the five main anthropogenic threats to coral reefs in
Southeast Asia in general, and Indonesia in particular (based on Ceasar 1997)87:
(1) Poison fishing: Cyanide or traditional poison is squirted on coral heads to stun
and capture live aquarium fish for the European and North American markets, and
live food fish for expensive restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian
cities (Johannes and Riepen 1995, Barber and Pratt 1997). The poison kills coral
heads and other reef organisms (Alvarez 1995, Rubec 1986). Poison fishing is
illegal and often organised by businessmen running larger vessels in Southeast
Asian waters, hiring local workers or bringing in their own to dive on the reefs;
(2) Blast fishing: Small bombs are detonated in shallow reef areas, killing targeted
schools of fish, but also killing larvae, juveniles and corals (Cesar ibid.)88;
(3) Coral mining: Corals are collected and smashed for house construction and lime
production (see (1)(ii)(a), section 3.2);
87
A more detailed description of destructive fishing techniques is given in appendix 4 and ch. 5.2.
About forty years are thought to be required for a reef to recover to 50% hard coral cover after being
blasted (Djohani 1996).
88
37
(4) Sedimentation and pollution: A result of logging, erosion, untreated sewage and
industrial discharges, which smother and kill the corals (e.g. Nowlis et al 1997,
Björk et al 1995); and
(5) Overfishing: Does not destroy corals but reduces abundance and diversity of fish
and invertebrates (Pauly and Chua 1988).89
Ad(5): Traditionally many coastal communities had developed highly sophisticated
institutions to regulate their resource use in a, for them, sustainable way (Berkes 1989,
Ostrom 1990). However in the face of State interventions in property rights to natural
resources90, increased commercialisation of so-called common property resource
products (Baland and Platteau 1996), and increasing coastal population pressure
(Olson 1968, Ehrlich 1988, Pauly 1988), many institutions have been replaced by
‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 1968, McManus 1996) or ‘open access’ regimes
(Hardin 1998).91 These elements contribute to overharvesting of biological resources,
a problem which is only exacerbated by the general physical degradation of coral
reefs caused by the above mentioned factors (1)-(4).92
3.3.2 Impacts of diving
As outlined in section 2.1.2 environmental impacts of tourists can be direct or
indirect.
Indirect impacts
The indirect impacts on coral reefs result from the construction of infrastructure and
facilities for tourists, as well as impacts from running a tourism hotel and activities for
tourists.
89
On the impacts of fishing on coral reefs see e.g. Jennings and Polunin (1996), McClanahan (1995),
Russ (1991), Roberts (1995, Rice (1991), Tanzer (1998), Williams and Johannes (1998).
90 A practice often introduced by Western colonial powers (see e.g. Peluso and Poffenberger 1989).
91 See also footnote 3, chapter 1.1.
92 Tomascik et al (1997:1241) report that: ‘a healthy coral reef may produce anywhere between 20-45
metric tonnes of fish per km2 each year. In contrast, a degraded coral reef may produce between two
and five metric tonnes, and a functionally dead coral reef will not sustain any reef fishery.’
38
Examples of the former are sedimentation from construction of hotels and roads etc.
which eventually end up on the reefs, often with detrimental effects (Hawkins and
Robert 1994, Domroes 1993). Change in current and sedimentation patterns, harmful
to reefs, can be created by building jetties and piers (Wong 1993, Carpenter and
Maragos 1989).
Examples of the latter are the production of wastes from daily human activities (e.g.
solid wastes, waste water, sewage and spills of oil from boats etc.). Solid wastes that
are disposed untreated are not only an aesthetic problem, but items like plastic bags
etc. might choke reef animals (e.g. turtles) (Hampton and Hampton 1998). Sewage,
waste water and organic waste generally contribute to eutrophication of the coral reef
ecosystem, which may have effects such as reduced coral diversity and increased algal
growth (Brown 1997).
Other indirect environmental impacts are increased demand for fish affecting coral
reef communities and demand for locally collected sea curios like corals, shells, clams
etc.
Direct impacts
Diving has traditionally been considered an environmentally benign recreational
activity. The increase in the numbers of divers in the world over the last two decades
has however made popular dive sites like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Key
Largo in Florida, Bonaire in the Caribbean and the Red Sea in Egypt/Israel crowded
and in need of tighter management.93 In many cases both ecological and social
carrying capacities have been exceeded, even though the social CC for coral reef
divers often is exceeded first (Davis and Tisdell 1995). The main reason for overuse
of many dive sites is the open access nature of coral reefs: the well-known
externalities from economic theory apply (Davis and Tisdell 1996, Tisdell 1991).94
Both the Marine Protected Areas of Great Barrier Reef and Bonaire (and elsewhere in
93
See e.g. Dixon et al 1995, Dixon et al 1993, Pieters and Gevers (1995), Otteson 1990, Ward 1990,
Hawkins and Roberts (1994a), Shackley (1999).
94 See also Hardin (1968).
39
the Caribbean) are, however, now more tightly regulated and produce significant
revenues from tourism.
The direct impacts95 from divers on reefs are mainly caused by touching and breaking
corals and other organisms with bodyparts96, particularly fins and hands or from
collecting curio. Another effect, that has been increasingly discussed, is the impact
divers might have on animal behaviour and the delicate interplay between marine
organisms (e.g. Shackley 1998). A final effect related to dive activities that will be
mentioned here is the damage done to reefs from anchoring dive boats at dive sites
with no permanent moorings.
95E.g.
Rouphael and Inglis (1995), Harriott et al (1997), Hawkins and Roberts (1993, 1994b), Tilmant
(1987), Kenchington and Salvat (1988), Salm (1986), Talge (1993), Craik (1992), Driml (1987),
Schoorl and Visser (1991), Woodley (1992), Salm and Clark (1984).
96 The experienced a diver is the more likely is s/he to ascend from a dive without having inflicted
damage to the reef.
40
41
42
Chapter 4
Study Area
‘Situated upon the equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans,
this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part
of the globe, and teams with natural production which are elsewhere unknown.’
Wallace (1869) as cited in Tomascik et al (1997).
4.1 Physical environment
The Wallacea region of Indonesia which consists of the islands of Sulawesi,
Halmahera, Buru, Seram, Ambon, Butung, Sumbawa, Lombok, Flores, Timor and
Sumba (fig. 4.1) is named after Alfred Russel Wallace (Huxley 1868).97 The region
has a high terrestrial biodiversity (Whitten et al 1987). In the centre of this
biodiversity hotspot is The Tukang Besi Archipelago, a remote island group, about
200.000 hectares, off Southeast Sulawesi (fig. 4.2). The archipelago consists of all
major reef formations – atolls, barrier, fringing and patch (platform) reefs, as well as a
wide distribution of seagrass beds, and somewhat less abundant mangrove habitats.
The perceived Indo-Pacific centres of biodiversity for corals and fish are nearby and
the area has been shown to be rich in marine species. The low lying limestone islands
have been formed through uplifting of fossil coral reefs and are orientated along two
parallel submarine ridges in a roughly NW-SE direction. Stretches of open sea
between local reef systems reach depths of several kilometres.
The area is affected by changing monsoons, creating distinct dry and wet seasons.
Soils are generally poor and sandy, supporting brush-like natural vegetation, coconut
plantations and subsistence agriculture.
97
Alfred Russel Wallace was a British explorer naturalist who spent the period between 1854-1862 in
Malaysia, Indonesia and New Guinea. Wallace was the father of biogeography (and related fields) and
he developed the Theory of Evolution simultaneously with, but independently of, Charles Darwin
(Tomascik et al 1997, Sullivan 1998). The Wallace region has a very distinct biological diversity,
different from both islands such as Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Bali (which during the Ice Ages were
connected to the Asian shelf) and from islands to the west such as Papua New Guinea (which was
joined to Australia), despite being geographically close.
43
44
45
4.2. The people of Wakatobi98
The four major islands in the Wakatobi Archipelago99 – Wangiwangi, Kaledupa,
Tomia and Binongko are inhabited with a total population of about 90.000 people,
spread among 40 or more villages. Two major ethnic groups inhabit the islands; the
Wakatobi people and the Bajau.100 The two groups remain socially segregated from
one another and each speak their own unique language.
The Wakatobi people, land-based Butonese descendants, are farmers, traders and
craftsmen101 and comprise about 95% of the local population. The main Wakatobian
settlements (villages) are marked on the map in figure 4.2.
The Bajau people are traditional fishermen, living mostly in semi permanent villages
erected on the reef flats. They are sometimes referred to as ‘sea gypsies’ as many still
spend part of the year living on their boats during fishing excursions. Living on boats
on the move around the seas (‘sea nomad culture’) used to be a more central element
of the Bajau culture, than it is now (Djohani et al 1995, Djohani 1996).
There are five Bajau (permanent) villages in the Wakatobi: Mola Selatan and Mola
Utara (Wangiwangi), Sampela, La Hoa and Mantiggola (Kaledupa), and Lamangau
(Tomia) (see appendix 3 for a map where these villages are marked.). Of these, Mola
Selatan and Mola Utara are the biggest and also relatively wealthier than the other
villages, particularly compared to Sampela, which possibly is the poorest of the Bajau
(pers.obs.). Some smaller settlements of Bajau are also spread on several of the
smaller islands of the Wakatobi (pers.obs.).
Bajau communities remain culturally and politically isolated from mainstream
Indonesia. Government programs that benefit most rural communities, such as
primary schools, health clinics and family planning programmes, are largely nonexistent within Bajau villages. Few Bajau speak the national language, infant
98
This section is based on Stanzel and Newman (1997).
‘Wakatobi’ is the locally preferred name for the Tukang Besi Archipelago.
100 Sometimes also written as ‘Bajo’.
101 The archipelago is named after the famous iron makers (‘tukang besi’) of the island of Binongko.
99
46
mortality and fertility rates are high, and their legal status is undermined by the fact
that Bajau have no official land ownership (Oomen 1997).
The Wakatobi is part of Southeast Sulawesi and the Regional government and
Governor are located in Kendari. The region is subdivided into districts and the
islands are part of South Buton with the district head or Bupati, located in Bau Bau,
where most of the administrative offices for the district including a hospital, law
courts, PHPA and fisheries offices, police etc.102 Each of the main four islands has a
government appointed administration officer or Carmat, a fisheries officer and
representatives from the policy and the army. Each village has an elected head man or
Lura, except for the Bajau villages where the Lura is appointed by the Lura of the
closest island village (Stanzel and Newman 1997).
Politically and economically, the archipelago is controlled by Wakatobi people.
Fishing is carried out almost exclusively by the Bajau who supply the Wakatobi
people with fish and seafood. Only on the islands of Wanci and Tomia is limited
fishing also carried out by the Wakatobi people. The Bajau only interact with
Wakatobi people when attending markets on the islands to barter/trade fish and other
marine commodities for rice and basic household necessities.
4.3 The Wakatobi Marine National Park
The archipelago extending more than 13,000 km2 between 05º15’S, 123º23’E and
06º08’S, 124º37’E was declared as a Marine National Park in July 1996 (Stanzel and
Newman ibid.). Indonesia has 34 National Parks, 28 of them terrestrial and six marine
(MacAndrews 1998), and the Wakatobi is the second largest of the marine parks
(Harianto pers.com.).
The establishment of PA status for the Wakatobi was prompted firstly by a WWF
report from 1989, based on scientific baseline studies of the reefs conducted on two
102
SE Sulawesi’s capital is Kendari. Buton is one of its four regencies, and the capital is Bau Bau.
47
scientific expeditions in the early 1980s (Snellus I and II ) (Djohani 1989). The report
recommended that the Tukang Besi should be assigned a strict nature reserve status,
because of high biodiversity, relatively healthy reefs and a recognition that: ‘There is
an urgent need for management to safeguard the coral reefs and its species of the
Tukang Besi Archipelago’ (emphasis added) (ibid.)
Secondly, fresh baseline surveys of the coral reefs were conducted by Op Wal103
volunteers from the start of the project in 1995. The results of these surveys, which
supported the WWF report’s call for action, together with intense lobbying by central
persons involved in Op Wal, were important for the central government decision of
establishing the Wakatobi Marine National Park (Coles and Harianto pers.com.).
103Operation
Wallacea is a project run by Ecosurveys Ltd, a UK based ecological consultancy, in
partnership with the Wallacea Development Institute (WDI), an Indonesian based NGO. Volunteers
mainly from Britain have conducted baseline surveys of reefs since the start of the project in 1995. Op
Wal’s involvement in the Wakatobi will be discussed in chapter 6.
48
Chapter 5
Conservation and local livelihoods
The following chapters will present the results of the research, and a discussion
relevant to the issues introduced in chapter 2 and 3. This chapter is a brief presentation
of the findings regarding local resource extraction and use, the environmental impacts
of these activities and a justification for introducing conservation efforts, as described
in special objectives (1) and (2) in the introductory chapter.
5.1 The state of the coral reefs in the Wakatobi
As briefly mentioned in the previous chapter, both an early WWF report and baseline
studies by Op Wal prompted the establishment of the Marine Park. High biological
conservation value as well as the rapid depreciation of this were the main
justifications for legal protection. Op Wal used volunteer based swim surveys104 to
collect baseline data for such variables as topography, dominant benthic life cover,
biodiversity and the abundance of (commercial) fish (Stanzel and Newman ibid).
(1) Coral reef quality (live benthic cover as a proxy):
Overall, 77% of the reefs surveyed had more than 50% coral cover. This is high
compared to Cesar’s (1996) report concluding that only 29% of Indonesia’s reefs are
in good condition with coral covers over 50%.
The highest coral cover figure was found in remote reef areas less utilised by humans,
such as the reefs of Pulau Ndaa, Pulau Moromaho, Pulau Kentiole and Pulau
Binongko (see fig. 4.2 and 5.1).
Volunteer marine surveys have been criticised for being ‘unscientific’ (too imprecise and
subjective) and therefore invalid. Even if these surveys would have been better conducted by marine
biologists, the approach is pragmatic in economising with scarce conservation resources, and will give
meaningful data if volunteers are properly trained in underwater research techniques (English et al
1994).
104
49
(2) Biodiversity
The diversity of benthic invertebrates proved high for most reefs, and more than 50
genera of hard coral have been found in the area to date.105 ‘Charismatic’ species such
as marine mammals (dolphins, dugongs, whales), sharks (nurse, reef, white tip reef),
great mantas and turtles were sighted.
(3) Signs of reef degradation
Some of the reefs showed distinct signs of habitat destruction from illegal blast and
poison fishing activities (see section 3.3.1).106
Resource depletion was evident for marine organisms of high commercial value,
targeted mainly for export industries. These organisms include (giant) clams, sea
cucumbers, lobsters, groupers and humphead wrasses (for live sea food restaurants in
Asian cities) and sharks.107
Of the volunteer divers who participated in the marine surveys more than 45% rated
the overall quality of the Wakatobi reefs as ‘fair’ on a five step scale from very poor to
very good. 37% thought the reefs were very good (Stanzel and Newman, ibid). These
results conceal the variation in quality for different sites within the park, and do of
course not necessarily represent the biological value of reefs. Not only coral cover is
important for the dive experience, but also the abundance (and diversity) of (large)
fish and other marine organisms, as well as so-called special sightings of sharks, rays,
turtles, lobsters, clams etc.
Stanzel and Newman’s report concludes that damaged or depleted reefs in the
Wakatobi have a good potential for recovery.
Since the establishment of the Marine Park no quantitative monitoring of coral reef
quality, extent of degradation and stocks of biological resources have been carried out
by the Park Rangers Office (Harianto pers.com.). Only qualitative information from
105Veron
(1993) analysing the biogeography of hermatypic corals, classifies the Tukang Besi within the
zone of highest generic richness, with up to 70 coral genera likely to be found in the area.
106 See appendix 4 for a description of destructive fishing techniques and types of fishermen.
107 Both sea cucumber and shark fins are delicacies in the Chinese cuisine.
50
Rangers and local fishermen as well as divers’ opinions108 are available to judge how
the above indicators have evolved.
The Chief Park Manager, Harianto, concludes from the information gathered through
patrolling the Wakatobi regularly that the frequency of blast fishing on the reefs in
general has decreased by 30% since the park was established (Harianto pers.com.).
The damage to reefs varies, however, between areas within the park. Reefs around
Wangi Wangi, Karang Kaledupa109 and off Kaledupa are more susceptible to damage
than more remote areas.
Volunteer divers and staff working for Op Wal who were interviewed generally
thought that there were more big fish on the regular dive sites around Hoga island110
now than in earlier years, a fact that can in part be assigned to the establishment of the
Park and the increased boat activity both from Rangers and divers from Hoga in the
area.
As to the quality of reefs in the Wakatobi compared to other divesites in Southeast
Asia and the world, all experienced divers interviewed thought that the best sites in
the Wakatobi rank among the top sites they had visited. Even though many divers
point out that large fish (such as sharks, groupers and great mantas) are (still)
relatively rare in the Wakatobi, the diversity and abundance of corals and other marine
life are thought to be as good as anywhere in the world (Kizilkaya pers.com.).
The latter is the reason why many divers come back to the Wakatobi again and again
(L. Mäder pers.com).
108
Can only be given by divers who have visited the Wakatobi at least in two different years (and dived
the same sites).
109 Atolls running SW to SSW of Kaledupa (and west of Tomia).
110 Op Wal is based on Hoga, a small island just east of Kaledupa (see fig. 4.2).
51
5.2 Local livelihoods and environmental impacts
The establishment of a Marine Park is known from experience only to be one (small)
step in the direction of conservation111, and it is not surprising that investigations in
the Wakatobi showed that even though blast fishing may have been reduced by 30%
since July 1996, most damaging activities mentioned in 3.3.1 do still exist and
represent a serious threat to coral reefs and long term livelihoods.
Before discussing environmental impacts of local activities, it is worth presenting a
socio-economic survey carried out in the Wakatobi for the Operation Wallacea report
by Stanzel and Newman (1997). Table 5.1 shows the distribution of people in the
Wakatobi and their ‘official’ livelihoods.
Table 5.1: Demographic distribution and local livelihoods (adapted from Stanzel and
Newman (1997:33)).
District
name
Villages
Population
Wangi
Wangi
16
36485
17789 male
18696 f.male
Kaledupa
10
14704
6925 male
7779 female
3545
farming, fishing
Tomia
8
3548
farming, fishing,
trading
Binongko
8
12910
6899 male
6011 female
12006
6001 male
6005 female
n/a
farming,
horticulture,
fishing, trading
craftsmen (iron
making)
111
H.holds
6086
Livelihoods
Bajau villages
Boats112
farming, fishing,
trading between
islands and with
Maluku,
Ambon, Irian
Jaya, East Java,
Singapore
Mola Utara:
Pop.: 1979
982 male,
997 female,
501 families
Mola Selatan:
Pop.: 2395
555 families
Mantiggola:
150 families
Sampela:
Pop: app 1000
200 families
La Hoa
Lamangau:
20 families
Canoes: 960
Katinting: 48
Jonson: 153
Lambo: 53
none
Canoes: 520
Katinting: 7
Jonson: 32
Lambo: 68
Canoes: 520
Katinting: 40
Jonson: 50
Canoes: 195
Katinting: 1
Jonson: 84
Lambo: 1
See e.g. Kelleher and Recchia (1998), Jones (1994), Agardy (1993), Gray (1997).
Katinting is a dugout canoe with small engine. Lambo is a large, unmotorised sailing vessel. Jonson
is a medium sized motorised boat.
112
52
The information in table 5.1 should be kept in mind when destructive activities are
discussed in the following section.
Based on interviews there was agreement that blast fishing, cyanide fishing and coral
mining represent the most serious threats, while there were conflicting views as to
whether there is an overfishing problem (with legal techniques) in general in the park.
The three former activities are all illegal in Indonesia (Harianto pers.com.).
The threats to reefs (described in section 3.3.1) for the Wakatobi will be discussed in
turn, starting with the problem of overfishing.
It is likely that reef areas in close proximity to relatively large human settlements are
locally overexploited, such as in the Kaledupa channel just off the Bajau village of
Sampela (Hovis and Majors pers.com.) and off Mola Utara and Mola Selatan, but park
manager Harianto believes, again with no quantitative data to support this, that the
size of the human populations per se at present does not represent a threat to overall
fish stocks. There is however considerable pressure on particular species such as sea
cucumber, sharks, groupers, giant clams and possibly turtles113, that may drive these
locally extinct. As mentioned above large fish such as groupers, Napoleon wrasses114
and sharks are rarely observed while diving, and if observed the specimens are usually
relatively small. When visiting the fish market in Wanci/Mola for three days, only two
very small sharks (with fins cut off) were observed (pers.obs.). Both observations in
fish markets115 and diving indicate overexploitation of certain (often commercially
valuable) species.
Bomb fishing inflicts direct damage to reefs. During the five week stay on Hoga no
blasts were heard (pers.obs.). Bombs detonated on reefs can be heard for miles under
and above water (depending on the type of explosive used). Most interviewees
thought that the frequency of bombing in the Kaledupa channel and around Hoga had
113
In Mola there is a commercial turtle breeding pen (pers.obs.). Eggs are imported from elsewhere in
Indonesia and turtles locally caught. Grown up turtles are sold (legally) to the Balinese ceremonial
market, and at least 10% of the hatched turtles are released in the Wakatobi (Harianto pers.com.).
114 In Hong Kong restaurants the prices for a kilo of grouper or Napoleon wrasse may be as high as
USD 60-180 (Cesar 1997).
115 Most commercially valuable organisms are, however, rarely traded in local markets. Dead groupers
and sharks end, however, often up in these markets.
53
decreased compared to earlier years. Some assigned this to the increased boat activity
in the area (from rangers and Op Wal divers), and that these fishermen only were
‘laying low for a while’ (Fudge pers.com.).
Generally the park rangers encounter around one illegal blast per week on average in
heavily exploited areas such as around Wangi Wangi, while the reefs around Tomia
have a much lower frequency (app. once a month) (Harianto pers.com.).
During June and July two suspected bomb fishermen were sentenced to seven and
nine months respectively in a local court in Bau Bau for ‘possession of bombs with
the intent to carry out illegal blast fishing.’ These are the first two prosecutions of
illegal activities in the park. See plates 5.1 and 5.2 for photos of an undamaged reef
and two recently bombed reefs in the Wakatobi.
Cyanide and a local type of poison are known to be used to stun reef fish in the
Wakatobi for export to the live seafood trade in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.
Particularly groupers and Humphead Napoleon wrass are targeted for this trade. As
explained in a previous section (and in appendix 4), the poison can kill corals as well
as small fish and other organisms. Cyanide fishing often occurs in conjunction with
the use of hookah compressors (surface supplied breathing apparatus) as the targeted
fish tend to flee and hide in the reef structure. In the Bajau village of Mantigola about
ten hookah compressors are used (Stanzel and Newman ibid.). Since 1997 there have
been eight cases of rangers catching boats with live Napoleon Wrasses in pens
destined for the live sea food markets (Harianto, pers.com.).
Coral (and sand) mining is carried out both by the Wakatobi people and the Bajau,
even though the latter are known to use corals to a larger extent than the Wakatobi
people. The Bajau use corals extensively for construction materials, particularly for
house foundations (pers.obs.). Corals are the only type of construction material (in
addition to some types of wood) that the Bajau can afford (Stanzel and Newman
ibid.). See plate 5.3 for an example of a typical Bajau house built on coral
foundations.
As is the case for other reef areas in Indonesia threat four, sedimentation and
pollution, does not seem to be a problem to reefs in general in the Wakatobi (Stanzel
54
and Newman ibid). There are however local sewage and solid waste disposal
problems in most of the villages (Bajau and Wakatobi people) which may represent a
threat to human health116, but as yet with the present number of people, not to the
coral reefs in the area (pers. obs., Harianto pers. com.).117 In the village of Sampela,
for example, there are growing sewage and litter problems (Hovis, pers.com.).
Some of the environmental impacts mentioned above are caused by local fishermen
and some by outsiders. The rest of this section will consider the livelihoods of local
Bajau in particular.
As briefly mentioned in chapter 4, the Bajau fully depend on the sea for survival.
Traditionally they used dugout canoes and wooden sailing vessels for fishing trips.
Methods of capture were adapted to the needs of subsistence fisheries and hand-lines,
nets, traps or home-made spears were used predominantly.
Since the Bajau used to be nomadic it can be assumed that whichever local resource
use institution they had developed through centuries, it was tailored for a life on the
move. Garbage and sewage were disposed of directly in the sea and marine resources
were generally abundant compared to subsistence needs (Djohani 1996). Even if it is
true that the Bajau possess enormous knowledge of the sea, it would be surprising if a
local institution designed for a nomadic lifestyle would be able to cope with problems
arising in a permanent settlement such as the Bajau villages of the Wakatobi. In the
village of Sampela no institutions for restricting fishing or reef gleaning118 were
identified, and there was no sign of a conservation ethic among the villagers (Hovis,
pers.com.).
The Bajau population is expanding relatively fast and consequently there is a growing
need for construction materials for houses, fuel wood and food, generally leading to
higher level of marine resource exploitation. An expanding permanent human
settlement will also encounter increasing sewage and waste disposal problems, as
mentioned above.
116
Particularly in Bajau villages poor hygienic conditions are known to cause dysentery and skin
diseases (Djohani 1996).
117 The exception to this may, as mentioned in section 3.3.2, be floating plastic debris or other litter
that can kill marine life.
118 During low tide villagers walk across the reef flats collecting shellfish and other marine organisms
55
Increasing number of Bajau, coupled with a combination of declining catches and
increasing exposure to commercial markets have driven many fishermen to seeking
more effective fishing techniques.119 Even though many of the Bajau are subsistence
fishermen, the few involved in commercial activities have a large environmental
impact when bombs and cyanide are used. While both blast and cyanide fishing have
been reported from the Bajau village of Mola, only small numbers of individuals in
the villages appear to be using these techniques. In Sampela for example only two
fishermen were considered to be full time blast fishermen in Stanzel and Newman’s
report (ibid.), while it is now believed that nobody is involved in these activities in
Sampela (Majors, pers.com.).
NGOs and the Park Rangers working with the Bajau have introduced alternative
livelihoods aimed at taking pressure off the reefs. These include fish aggregating
devices (FADs) (so-called ‘rompongs’120), seaweed culture and alternative building
materials for house foundations. Seaweed culture is widely used in the Wakatobi,
while the Rompongs are slow to be accepted in some places (e.g. in Sampela) (Hovis
pers.com., pers.obs.). It is unclear, however, whether these ‘alternative’ livelihoods
are real alternatives or just another means of adding to the family income (in addition
to current activities) (pers.obs., Hovis pers.com.).
The local Wakatobi people are, as mentioned in chapter 4, primarily depending on
plantations and farming to make a living. Some are also involved in fishing, however
and to what extent they are involved in illegal fishing activities is unknown. They
have indirect effects on the general exploitation of marine resources insofar as their
demand for seafood and fish contributes to overfishing as well as direct reef damage.
119
In addition to illegal methods, these include modern spearguns and fine meshed nets.
Rompongs are a form of fish aggregating device (FAD) consisting of a floating platform in deep
water under which pelagic fish gather when attracted by light from lamps on the rompong
120
56
5.3 The environmental impacts of outsiders
From the previous section it is clear that local livelihoods have serious impacts on the
coral reefs of the Wakatobi. It is however, generally believed that the Bajau who are
involved in illegal fishing activities are to some extent tools in the hands of more
powerful outsiders (Harianto pers.com.). Traders and middlemen of exporting
companies such as aquarium exporters, live grouper and Napoleon wrasse, lobster and
sea cucumber traders both from Buton and Ujung Pandang, are known to approach
Bajau communities for the collection of marine organisms. These outsiders provide
powerful, and perverse, incentives for often poor Bajau fishermen (McNeely 1993).
Sometimes these traders bring their own crews on large vessels, leaving nothing but
destroyed reefs behind. Many such vessels are known to be operating in remote
regions of the Indonesian archipelago, also in the Wakatobi (Cesar 1997, Stanzel and
Newman ibid.).
In addition to outside businessmen several groups of outside fishermen are also
operating in the Wakatobi. These include e.g. Bugis fishermen using medium-sized
motorised vessels fishing for lobsters, sea cucumbers and turtles.
5.4 MPA objectives and zoning system
Based on the data collected by Operation Wallacea through its first phase a
management plan is currently under way (Harianto pers.com.). The management of
the Park is based on the similar principle of multiple use as for GBRMP, and the
objective is, as for GBRMP, ‘to provide for the protection, wise use, and
understanding of the Wakatobi in perpetuity through the care and development of the
Park’ (adapted from Ottesen, Harianto pers.com.).
Op Wal’s data on biological conservation value for different parts of the Wakatobi
were utilised in elaborating a detailed zoning system for the Park. A brief overview of
these zones are given here (see fig. 5.1 and table 5.2).
57
58
Table 5.2: Zoning system for the Wakatobi Marine National Park (Source: Harianto
pers.com. and UTNKW (1999:8-9)).
NO.
ZONE
SIZE
LOC.
ACTIVITIES/
(KM )
FIG.5.1
COMMENTS
6835
A
2
1
Core
High conservation value. Diverse and abundant
(restricted)
marine life and high coral quality.
Zone
Fishing and recreational use prohibited. Restricted
diving allowed.
2
Protected
1605
B
Restricted fishing and diving allowed.
705
C
Fishing and all recreational activities allowed.
2810
D
Traditional subsistence and commercial use
Zone
3
Intensive Use
Zone
4
Traditional Use
Zone
5
Rehabilitation
Zone
allowed.
1637
E
Serious damage to reefs identified. Restricted
traditional fishing allowed.
PHPA appointed park rangers in early 1997, and the total number of rangers working
partly in the Wakatobi and the Ranger Office in Bau Bau is around 50. For patrolling
purposes the Park can be seen as divided into 4 corridors, each comprising one of the
main islands, running SW to NE along the straight lines in Fig. 5.1. 10-12 rangers are
stationed on each of the main islands and are in principle in charge of patrolling the
different zones in their ‘corridor’. The park office has currently only two boats (one
wooden and one fibre) which are used to cover the corridors around Wangi Wangi,
Kaledupa/Hoga and Tomia. There is routine patrolling 2-3 times a week while the
rangers sometimes go out with the Navy and the Police if they have special reasons for
suspecting illegal activity (app. once a month) (Harianto pers.com.). The Navy and the
Police add legal weight to action against potential suspects who may be observed.
In addition to enforcement and monitoring functions, the rangers are also involved in
educational activities in local villages on their respective islands.
59
Since zones were set up mainly on the basis of biological data (and not on local
people’s needs) the zones are generally not respected among local people. Harianto
believes that the zones may have to be revised, and it is likely that a system of smaller
community sanctuaries can be more successful (Majors, pers. com.).
5.5 Are additional conservation efforts needed?
Even though there are no hard data on the exact rate of environmental change in the
Park, it seems clear from the above that most of the threats to Indonesian coral reefs
discussed in chapter 3 are also, to various degrees, a threat to the Wakatobi reefs.
The reasons for the degradation seem to be complex. There is uncertainty as to
whether outsiders or the Bajau themselves constitute the biggest threat to the
conservation of the Wakatobi reefs. It seems to be clear, though, that both local people
and outsiders need to be targeted for conservation efforts: Outsiders through top level
legislation and enforcement, and local people, independently of outsiders, through a
main strategy of providing and promoting alternative and sustainable livelihoods.
60
61
62
Chapter 6
Tourist operators, tourism potential and the role of ecotourism
‘Because it’s there, and Jaques [Cousteau] liked it.’
Undercurrent, October (1997).
After having analysed the state of the coral reefs, the rate of environmental change and
the role of local livelihoods, as well as the general management regime in the
Wakatobi, it is now appropriate to analyse the actual and potential role of tourism in
the Park, as well as obstacles in the way for ecotourism to succeed. The analysis will
focus in particular on the two biggest tourist operators Op Wal and Wakatobi Divers,
and the linkages between these and the local economy and environment. The last part
of the chapter looks at a likely development of tourism to the area as well as key
issues in ecotourism, and will together with the first part fulfil special objectives 3, 4
and 5 outlined in section 1.3.
6.1 Operation Wallacea
6.1.1 Concept and aim
Op Wal started in 1995 taking paying volunteer naturalists, mainly from Britain, to
help biologists in conducting baseline surveys of rainforests and coral reefs in the
Wallacea region. Op Wal is managed and run by an UK based ecological consultancy
in collaboration with Wallacea Development Institute, a Jakarta based NGO dedicated
to conservation in the region (Coles and Sutowo 1998). The Indonesian Institute of
Sciences and the Directorate General of Forestry and Conservation works in
conjunction with the operation, which is ‘not for profit’.
63
The aim of the operation on the marine side is officially to contribute to the
conservation of the coral reefs of the Wakatobi through making data from volunteer
surveys available for official management authorities, contribute to the local economy
as an ecotour operator, as well as initiating various community projects and activities.
The type of tourism Op Wal is involved in, often termed volunteer tourism, is a
relatively recent phenomenon. Marine volunteer tourism is not more than 10-15 years
old, initiated by Western based organisations such as Coral Cay (in Belize), Friends of
the Earth, and Frontier (in East Africa) conducting baseline surveys of coral reefs. The
market for this type of tourism is increasing for many of the same reasons as for
general nature tourism. An important difference is that volunteers often seek what
they see as an added meaning from contributing directly to conservation through their
work.
The number of people Op Wal has recruited to their base on Hoga121, and is planning
to for the near future is given in table 6.1.
Table 6.1: Visitor numbers to Op Wal from establishment, and plan for the next five
years (Source: Coles pers.com.).
YEAR
NUMBER
% GROWTH
1995
60
n/a
1996
80
33.33
1997
120
50
1998
140
16.66
1999
400
185.71
2000
600
50
2001
800
33.33
2002
900
12.50
2003
1,000
11.11
2004
1,100
10
Hoga Island itself is very small and in addition to Op Wal’s base, only a few Bajau live there (on
the north coast).
121
64
Almost all tourists who come on an expedition with Op Wal can be placed in Tabata’s
(1992) category ‘hard core divers’. The sole purpose of the trip for most tourists is
diving, and the main reason they go to the Wakatobi is the high quality of the reefs in
the Park (Coles pers.com.).
6.1.2 Economic and environmental linkages
This section will present some important economic and environmental aspects and
relate these to the discussion in chapter 2. Rather than only stating hard figures, more
of a qualitative approach is chosen, where the relative importance of different impacts
is assessed.
Economic Aspects
On average each tourist spends four weeks on Hoga for which they pay £ 1650. This
price includes transport from Ujung Pandang122, food, accommodation, dive courses
and diving (tanks, weightbelt, air and transport). In addition volunteers pay for flights,
equipment rental and additional purchases on camp (such as drinks, local souvenirs
etc.).
A large share of the total expenditure does not leave the UK because of high costs
paying UK based sales staff, marketing campaigns, insurance, etc. (Coles pers.com.).
Similarly, of the money which reaches Indonesia a considerable share does not end up
in the Wakatobi, and thus leaks out of the region. The latter is mainly because the
towns in the Wakatobi cannot provide the goods and services often needed when
running a modern dive centre. E.g. dive equipment, engines, spare parts etc. must
often be bought in Ujung Pandang or Jakarta, or even in the UK. Much is spent in
transporting volunteers from Ujung Pandang to the Wakatobi, expenditure that does
not benefit the people of Wakatobi.
122
The capital of Sulawesi, located on the South-western tip of the island.
65
The direct economic impacts relevant to conservation of the Wakatobi123, are mainly
the expenditure for food (fish, vegetables and fruit), water and fuel (from Kaledupa)
and salaries for local people who are from the Wakatobi (or have their family there)
(see table 6.2).
Op Wal spends money locally only in Kaledupa (from Wakatobi people) and buys fish
mainly from Sampela Bajau. There are seven Sampela Bajau employed as boat boys,
diving assistants etc. on short or long term contracts, ten Kaledupans on similar
assignments, and three workers from Kendari working for WDI. In addition several
English people are employed on permanent contracts and spend thus a share of their
money locally (pers.obs., Reed pers.com.).
Op Wal has a policy of trying to spend more money locally but a problem is reliable
deliveries of essential products (Reed pers.com.).
Table 6.2: Local direct tourism expenditure per month (high season 1999) in
categories and local (Kaledupa and Sampela) and non-local (Buton) distribution
(approximate figures) (Source: Reed pers.com.).
Type of exp-
Exp./month
Kaledupa:
Kaledupa:
Buton:
enditure
(Rupiah124)
Wakatobi people
Bajau (Sampela)
Bau Bau
Food (excl. fish) 18.000.000
50%
0%
50%
Drinks
14.000.000
45%
0%
55%
Fish
2.500.000
1%
99%
0%
Fuel
9.000.000
100%
0%
0%
Local equip.
2.500.000
100%
0%
0%
4.500.000
70%
30%
0%
50.500.000
59%
8%
33%
mainatanace
Salaries for
local workers
TOTAL
123
Only local economic impacts are considered important, that is impacts within the Wakatobi (Buton
is excluded from this).
124 £1 was during the time of study app. Rupiah 10.000.
66
The amounts of indirect and induced impacts are difficult to assess but even though
the initial direct expenditure is relatively low, the coastal tourism is usually found to
have a high multiplicator effect for the local economy, often around 2-3 (Lindberg and
Enriquez 1993).
In addition to the above mentioned expenditure Op Wal also pays entrance fees of
Rupiah 50.000 per visitor to the tourist office in Bau Bau125 and contributes through
donations of Rompongs and community projects to livelihoods of the Bajau in
Sampela. Op Wal also encourages locals to manufacture sarongs, shirts, T-shirts,
carvings etc. for tourists, an effort which seems now to be spurring the establishment
of local small scale businesses in Kaledupa (pers.obs., Berverling pers.com.).
It is unlikely that the scale of the economic impacts described above contributes to
local price inflation, crowding out of important activities (such as food production) or
make the local economy vulnerable to a drop in tourism numbers, as suggested as
(negative) additional impacts in section 2.1.2.
Environmental Aspects
As shown in table 6.1 the number of tourists on Hoga is relatively small, and thus the
potential for severe environmental impacts limited.
Of indirect impacts, as mentioned in 3.3.2, there is generation of waste water, solid
wastes and sewage. In Op Wal’s base, waste water soaks into the ground, solid wastes
are to a large extent burnt126, and sewage is disposed in a cess pit, which at this stage
of tourist development seem to be an adequate treatment (pers.obs.).
There is no drinking water on the island127 and water for showers is available from
wells on Hoga. To the author’s knowledge this additional tourist demand has not lead
to major water shortages, either on Hoga (for the few locals who live there) or on
Kaledupa. If tourist numbers increase as planned (see table. 6.1) it is likely that a
125
Srijatno pers.com.
Solid waste such as cans and hard plastic that cannot be burnt are either being recycled (cans), or
used as floating devices for seaweed culture, fish nets (hard plastic) (pers.obs.).
127 Drinking water is bought from Kaledupa.
126
67
desalination plant will have to be installed, as well as a new sewage system (Quaile
1998).
The movements of tourists on the island are generally limited to a small area around
the Op Wal resort, including a short strip of beach, and more rarely, walks around the
island following the coastline. The terrestrial impacts on geological exposures,
minerals and fossils, soils, vegetation, animal life, aesthetics of the landscape and
cultural environment128 seem at present level of tourism to be negligible (pers. obs.).
As to the direct impacts of divers on the reefs there is reason to believe that these are
within the ecological carrying capacity. The tourists on Hoga can have a maximum of
3 dives129 a day for six days per week (18). The average tourist stays for four weeks
and would thus be able to have a maximum of 72 dives. Using this the maximum
number of dives carried out during 1999 would be 28,800, and if tourist numbers
increase as planned to 1,100 in 2004, the total would be 85,800 dives (see table
6.1).130
Op Wal has identified a number of dive sites for so-called pleasure dives (no survey
work) and survey dives. 14 dive sites around Hoga are used for pleasure dives and
survey dives, while a larger number of sites are in use only for surveys (pers.obs.). Op
Wal spreads its diving around the Wakatobi, and the most frequently dived sites are
not likely to have more than a maximum of app. 1,500-2,000 dives in 1999131, with
the majority far lower than that.
To calculate an ecological CC is as mentioned in previous sections, difficult. The few
attempts made in the coral reef management literature vary from 4,500 dives/site/year
for Bonaire Marine National Park (Dixon et al 1993) to near 15,000 in the Red Sea
(Hawkins and Roberts 1994). These numbers indicate, in as much as such results are
128
See the categories of direct environmental impacts outlined in section 2.1.2.
A dive with Op Wal lasts for 50 minutes, and second and third dives are shallower than the first,
being multilevel from 30 meters (pers.obs.)
130 The real number of dives would be much lower because some tourists come to Hoga to work on
special projects (not only diving), and because most people simply do not want three dives a day, or get
ill, or compressors and boats break down, weather is bad etc (pers.obs.).
131 Possibly the sites called ‘Outer and Inner Pinnacle’, ‘The Ridge’ and some of the ‘Buoys’.
129
68
meaningfully transferable, that most sites used by Op Wal would be safely within
ecological CC even with an increase of tourists to 1,100 in 2004.132
The social CC is, however, often exceeded first.133 Interviews with divers on Hoga
suggested that crowding for some people was getting to be a problem. An important
motivation for many tourists to go to Hoga, stressed by several repeat visitors, is the
low number of people compared to many of the popular dive sites in Southeast Asia
(for example Sipadan and Bunaken). One tourist suggested that more than 10 divers
on a site at the same time were for him too many (Tomonari pers.com.), while others
thought that crowding on the resort area was a problem. Social CC can, however, be
expanded by for example dispersing tourists over a wider area (more sites served by
more boats).134 The result of exceeded social CC is generally that tourists will not
come back, or if they are aware of it before their trip, will not come at all.
6.1.3 Ecotourist operator?
The above sections have identified economic and environmental aspects of Op Wal’s
resort on Hoga. Referring back to the discussion of ecotourism in chapter 2, Op Wal
can be said to operate low environmental impact tourism, but does not, at present
generate economic impacts of a type and magnitude which serve as economic
incentives for local resource conservation.
Two main reasons can be identified to explain this
(1) The magnitude of impacts are relatively insignificant for local people compared to
other livelihoods (Harianto pers.com.), and the benefits only accrue to a small number
of people confined to Kaledupa island, who may or may not be involved in destructive
reef activities, and may or may not see a clear link between the importance of
conservation for a continuos flow of economic benefits from tourism.
There are impacts of ‘scientific survey diving’ which also need to be considered: particularly the
impacts of specimen collection (e.g. nudibranchs and flatworms) as well as insensitive diving by
underwater photographers.
133 See sections 2.1.2 and 3.3.2.
134 See the discussion of Wakatobi Divers.
132
69
(2) There do not seem to exist enforceable property rights for the reef areas around
Hoga and Kaledupa, so that those who help conserving the reefs can also be sure to
reap the benefits from tourism. Both Kaledupans and Bajau from Sampela and Wangi
Wangi, and possibly outsiders, are operating in the intensive use zone around Hoga
where most of the dive sites are located (pers.obs., Harianto and Hovis pers.com.).
When (1) the impacts are small and there is no identifiable group of people who do
the damage, and therefore to which the economic benefits should be targeted; and (2)
no enforceable user rights can be assigned to this group, it is not surprising that
economic benefits are not working as local conservation incentives.
Even though Op Wal cannot be said to contribute to conservation through making it
economically beneficial for local people to conserve their coral reefs, a main objective
of the operation is to provide data and support for central management authorities as
well as contributing to alternative livelihoods projects in local villages, thus indirectly
contributing to conservation. Following this argument Op Wal can be classified as an
ecotourism operator.
6.2 Wakatobi Divers
6.2.1 Concept and aim
Wakatobi Divers is a commercial dive resort run by a Swiss man located on the small
island of Tolandono just off Tomia. Since its establishment in 1995 the resort has
aimed for relatively affluent tourists in the European and American markets with
special dive interests, such as underwater photography. The concept sold is top quality
diving in a beautiful, unspoilt and uncrowded environment for people who are
interested enough to travel there for up to three days.135
135
See section 6.4 for a description of travel route.
70
The aim of Wakatobi Divers is to preserve the coral reefs of the Wakatobi through
running an economically viable dive resort. As stressed by owner, L. Mäder, running
an operation like Wakatobi Divers is more of a lifestyle requiring full commitment
and idealism, than an easy business option: he expects to cover running costs for the
first time in 1999.136
Since the start Wakatobi Divers has had similar visitor numbers as Op Wal, and it
wishes to expand by around 25% in the next five years (table 6.3.).
Table 6.3: Visitor numbers for Wakatobi Divers establishment, and plan for the next
five years (Source: L. Mäder pers.com.).
YEAR
NUMBER
% GROWTH
1995
60
n/a
1996
85
41.67
1997
130
52.94
1998
170
30.77
1999
200
17.64
2000
250
25
2001
315
25
2002
400
25
2003
500
25
2004
625
25
6.2.1 Economic and environmental linkages
Economic Aspects
Wakatobi Divers has a somewhat more direct approach to conservation of the reefs on
which the tourist operation depends than Op Wal. Mäder has established since 1995 a
close relationship with the local Bajau of the village of Lamangau which involves
136
He believes that it may take another five years to get returns on his investment.
71
direct economic benefits in exchange for conservation of Mäder’s dive sites (and
particularly ‘house reef’137). These direct benefits include direct purchase of (pelagic)
fish, fruit and vegetables, and employment of local people. Wakatobi Divers employ
30 villagers on average working as boatboys, carpenters, beach cleaners, cooks etc.,
app. 100 on building an airstrip, and in addition, three locally influential village elders
are employed as ‘rangers’. Mäder’s policy is always to buy food etc. as close to the
resort as possible, never turn down local people who try to sell produce and pay 20%
more for the goods than in local markets. As for Op Wal, however, a large share of
the package price for an average 15 days stay leaks out of the Wakatobi. But on a local
scale, in the case of Wakatobi Divers, the direct economic benefits generated appear
to be significant for local people.
In return, through an explicit agreement, Mäder’s most important dive sites are not
‘touched’, i.e. fished, trampled, ‘gleaned’ or blasted. Wakatobi Divers seems to have
built a relationship where it is very clear in local people’s mind that if the reefs are
degraded, tourists will not come, and the direct benefits flowing from Wakatobi
Divers to the local community will cease. This type of conservation strategy, where a
commercial dive operator is directly involved in (small-scale) conservation of coral
reefs, as main steward, is relatively unexplored in the literature, but was recently
termed ‘entrepreneurial conservation’ (Colwell 1997).
Mäder emphasises that building a close relationship has been very difficult and
depended on the goodwill of several key people both in Lamagau and on Tomia, and
that there is no recipe to this type of conservation strategy. He believes that ‘making
money talk’ is the only way one can create local conservation incentives, when the
level of education is as low as for the Bajau: ‘Money is the short term solution,
education, the long term solution’ (L. Mäder pers.com.). Since the creation of
economic incentives is so important for his success, Mäder thinks that being an
economically viable operator is essential for conservation.
137
A ‘house reef’ is the reef just off the beach from the hotel resort.
72
Because of the lack of local infrastructure and the high costs involved, building and
running a safe138 and economically viable dive operation is, however, extremely
difficult (L. Mäder pers.com.). Possibly due to the high barrier to entry into the market
by other dive operators Mäder can, as he also points out, run his operation as a
monopolist for whom the best strategy in this case is to conserve the resource base on
which his business fully depends.139 A typical feature of nature tourism in general, and
dive tourism in particular, as briefly mentioned in chapter 3, is that good sites often
are exploited by a large number of operators leading to crowding and degraded
environments140, i.e. ‘an inoptimal number of grassing animals on the common’.
Compared to Op Wal economic benefits from Wakatobi Divers’ operation directly
function as local conservation incentives for those people who potentially can do
damage to reefs. Powerful outsiders and mixed and confused user rights seem to be
less of a problem for Wakatobi Divers’ dive sites than for Op Wal.
Environmental Aspects
The environmental impacts of the operation are very similar to Op Wal’s, only
somewhat smaller since the treatment of solid waste, waste water and sewage is
roughly the same, and tourism numbers lower. The impacts of the current construction
of an airstrip are, however, uncertain (Harianto pers.com.). Wakatobi Divers is very
conscious of environmental impacts and tries to reduce these to a minimum (pers.obs.,
L. Mäder pers.com.).
Since Mäder’s central concept is ‘small is beautiful’ the number of tourists to his
resort is kept low as a deliberate strategy. Maximum 15-20 tourists (which also is the
capacity) are accepted at any one time, a number which keeps (tourist on tourist)
impacts safely within the social CC (for most people). This policy also applies to the
dive sites which are protected from the fumbling of inexperienced divers and
‘Safe’ means having an emergency repatriation plan to decompression chamber, and provide
available medical doctors only within hours of any accidents.
139 The expression in resource economics that ‘the monopolist is the conservationist’s best friend’ fully
applies to the case of Wakatobi Divers.
140 This is a version of a prisoners’ dilemma caused by externalities.
138
73
unnecessary crowding, and thus also within the ecological CC. In return for this
strategy Mäder’s dive sites and particularly his ‘house reef’ are considered some of the
absolute best they had seen by many of the visitors who where interviewed.141
As mentioned at the beginning of section 6.2. Wakatobi Divers have plans to expand
their activity in the Wakatobi (table 6.1). This will be done through replicating the
concept which has proved to work on Tolandono at another site in the Wakatobi, in
order to keep the operation ‘small and beautiful.’
6.2.2 Ecotourist operator?
From the presentation of environmental and economic impacts and respective carrying
capacities in the previous section, it can be concluded here that Wakatobi Divers is
contributing to local coral reef conservation through creating economic incentives,
and can thus be categorised as an ecotourism operator.
6.3 Other Operators
To the author’s knowledge there are three additional tourist operators142 established in
the Wakatobi. These will be briefly described in turn here.
6.3.1 Lababa’s homestay
Lababa’s is a small backpackers’143 place established on Hoga in 1995 by a Dutch
lady. Her aim is to introduce small-scale tourism to the island of Hoga (and beyond)
so that local people can benefit. Since the start approximately 50 people have visited
141
See also the October, 1997 edition of the dive magazine Undercurrent (Trigger 1997). Wakatobi
was visited by a film team from National Geographic this summer, in itself a proof that the reefs hold a
high standard.
142 There is possibly a forth locally driven backpacker’s place on Binongko (brought to my attention by
UTNKW (1999)).
143 Backpackers are often relatively young, independent travellers on low budgets, venturing into more
remote regions on the search for adventure carrying all belongings on their backs.
74
on average per year paying around Rp 45,000 for lodging per day. As can be seen
from the small numbers, environmental and economic impacts are small but the
business is relatively good for Lababa and his family, compared to alternative ways of
making a living. The operation cannot be said to be ‘ecotourism’ as defined in chapter
2. It is not strictly nature-based, since the concept is more of a beach resort, and
conservation of coral reefs is not a direct aim or function of the operation.
Small family homestays if expanded can, however, contribute to raising awareness in
local communities about the importance of environmental quality for tourism, and be
a viable alternative livelihood (see e.g. the case of Bali (Wall and Long 1996)).
6.3.2 Pak Kasim’s
Pak Kasim is an Indonesian lawyer and philanthropist and head of a local NGO
working to improve the situation for the Bajau in Southeast Sulawesi. Pak Kasim is
currently building a small resort on Hoga meant to cater for the accommodation needs
of a growing Op Wal (pers.obs.). The long term aim of this operation is to involve
Bajau in running tourism activities as an alternative livelihood and conservation
strategy, as a response to increasing pressure on local marine resources (Pak Kasim
pers.com). Pak Kasim works closely with Op Wal and Chris Majors, an Australian
conservation worker based in Sampela, and aims to stress low environmental impacts
of his operation.
6.3.3 Live aboard CISKA
A fifth, tourist operator in the Wakatobi, is the joint Indonesian/Belgian run dive boat
(live aboard) CISKA. The boat has had a contract with Op Wal of taking
divers/volunteers to more remote parts of the Wakatobi. From late autumn 1999
CISKA plans to run as a commercial operation around many parts of South and
Southeast Sulawesi, including the Wakatobi. Live aboards are gaining in popularity
among divers, particularly because more remote reefs can be dived and crowding
75
avoided (Soontjens pers.com.).144 This type of dive tourism often creates minimal
economic impacts in destination areas because food is typically stocked up in a bigger
town, fish caught under way and the crew (naturally) non-local. Environmental (and
cultural145) impacts from this small-scale activity are also potentially small. CISKA’s
operation in the Wakatobi can, despite having potentially low environmental impacts,
not be categorised as ecotourism since there is no contribution to conservation.
6.4 Tourism potential for the Wakatobi
As has been mentioned in section 2.1.1 and 1.2 tourist arrivals to Indonesia have
grown steadily over the last decade146, apart from an exceptional year in 1998, from
which Indonesia now is emerging strongly.
The province of Southeast Sulawesi is, however, even by the travel guide Lonely
Planet considered an ‘off the beaten track’ destination, and in its most recent
Indonesian edition only 10 pages (out of 1050) are devoted to the island (Turner et al
1997). It is no surprise that the number of visitors to Buton is very low (fig. 6.4):
Table 6.4: Visitor arrivals to the Regency of Buton (include visitors to the Wakatobi)
(Source: The Provincial Tourism Office of South East Sulawesi, Muddin and Asy’ary
pers.com.).
YEAR
NUMBER
% GROWTH
1994
795
n/a
1995
1226
54.21
1996
1621
32.22
1997
1725
6.42
1998
261147
n/a
144
Live aboards have been used for many years in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and in the Red
Sea. They are still relatively rare around the Indonesian archipelago (Muller 1996).
145 Live aboards rarely come into contact with local people because they seek the more remote regions,
and in addition are ‘floating integrated resorts’ which do not need outside supplies.
146 See e.g. the publication ‘Visitor Arrivals to Indonesia’ by the Bureau of Transportation statistics
(BTS 1994).
147 Visitors until Oct. 1998 (the year of financial crisis and internal turmoil in Indonesia).
76
The main reason for the low number of tourist arrivals to the province is firstly that
access is time consuming, there are no ‘high profile’ attractions (pers.obs.) and
Sulawesi is not a part of the well-trodden backpackers’ route from
Bangkok,
Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore (or Sumatra), Java, Bali eastern Indonesia to Australia
(Hampton 1998).
Even though the Wakatobi has magnificent scenery and world-class diving, the
number of tourists visiting the region is therefore first and foremost limited by the
poor and time consuming access. A typical journey from Europe involves one long
international flight, two short national flights, two long boat journeys (between 4-10
hours) and a 90 minute jeep journey, thus nearly a week to get there and back.
As long as local access is not improved (e.g. through an international airport in the
province148) the number of visitors to the Wakatobi will be limited. Op Wal and
Wakatobi divers149 can, however, realistically, hope to increase their arrivals, so that
the total number of tourists to the Wakatobi will approach 2000 in five years time.150
This is realistic when taken into account the exceptional growth in new dive
certifications across the world and the increasing demand for unspoilt sites,
particularly in Southeast Asia (Tabata 1992).
6.5 Key issues in ecotourism
This last subsection will briefly discuss key obstacles in making ecotourism in the
Wakatobi work, drawn from general lessons learned from ecotourism, conservation
and social development projects.
The discussion will be based on the following figure adapted from Ross and Wall
(1999) (fig. 6.1):
148
This is not likely to happen in the near future (Harianto and Coles pers.com).
Wakatobi Divers is awaiting final approval for the construction of an airstrip near their resort. If
granted (which is likely, Harianto pers.com.), this will greatly increase access for tourists to Tolandono.
150 As seen in 1998 the continuous growth in visitor numbers may be dependent on exogenous factors
such as the political stability in Indonesia or the economic situation in Western countries.
149
77
78
To make ecotourism work requires that symbiotic relationships in fig.1 are
strengthened, and it is possible that the saying ‘the chain is only as strong as its
weakest link’ applies. Ross and Wall (1999: 126) point out that:
‘..the success of a site reflects the extent to which it is able to protect natural resources
and biodiversity, generate money to finance conservation and contribute to the local
economy, educate visitors and members of local communities, and, thereby,
encourage environmental advocacy and involve local people in conservation and
development issues.’
Another important point made by Wall and Ross (ibid.:129) is that:
‘The development of positive relationships between people, resources and tourism is
very unlikely to occur without implementation of effective policies, management
strategies, and involvement of a wide range of organizations, including NGOs and, in
developing areas, conservation and development agencies.’
For the case of Wakatobi economic incentives from tourism for conservation have
been discussed, but it is clear that in order for ecotourism to work as a ‘win-win’
strategy other aspects, as illustrated by the figure and the two quotations, must also to
be taken into account.
Two lessons learned from other conservation projects in general and ecotourism
projects in particular, will be briefly discussed here.
(1) Local participation
As recognised for many years from evaluations of rural development projects, the
effectiveness of a project (so presumably also for a conservation strategy such as
ecotourism) is often strongly correlated by the degree of local community
participation151 (e.g. Paul 1987, Nayaran 1995). The importance of local involvement,
not only in the implementation phase, but in the whole process from initiation to
evaluation is often crucial for long term sustainability of ecotourism projects.152 In the
case of the Wakatobi, this means that local people’s involvement in ecotourism should
151
Development practitioners have also become increasingly aware of the difficulties inherent in the
concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘community’, the latter term often being romanticised as a unit of
agreement and common priorities (Midgley 1986).
79
ideally extend beyond the mere role of ‘receiving economic benefits’ to the
management of tourism businesses.153 This aim is very much in line with the recent
approaches in community-based coral reef conservation where the importance of
increased responsibility of local people in the management of their own resources, is
emphasised.154
(2) MPA financing and management
As indicated by fig. 6.1 for ecotourism to succeed, management of the site need to be
effective and efficient. The management of the Wakatobi by Harianto and his rangers
is funded through central government budgets, but these resources are, as for most
PAs, scarce.155 For local involvement and responsibility for coral reefs to be
promoted, as mentioned in (1), local people’s user rights need to be equitably
distributed and guaranteed against outsiders. To be able to carry out this task properly,
more resources are needed for patrolling, policing and local community educational
work.
A way of financing the running costs of PAs, which has been much discussed in the
literature, is user/entrance fees (e.g. Dixon and Sherman (1990), Hooten and Hatziolos
(1994)). These have traditionally been very low in DCs, but can, serve both as vehicle
for limiting number of visitors (efficiency) and as an important revenue generator, if
set higher than is the case for most PAs today. To enter the Wakatobi foreign tourists
pay Rp 50.000 to the tourism office in Bau Bau156, which is a minute fraction of total
travel costs. It can be argued based on economic theory that many of the current
tourists to the Wakatobi have very inelastic demand. This means the total number of
visitors would not be reduced much even if a relatively higher entrance fee (and/or a
fee per dive) was levied. Since the number of tourists to the Wakatobi in the near
152
See e.g. Ross and Wall (ibid.), Timothy (1999), Pearce et al (1996), Western et al (1994).
This point was recognised by Pak Kasim (pers.com.). In the Wakatobi he thinks education and ‘on
the job training’ can prepare local people for the skills required to succeed in international tourism.
154 See e.g. White et al (1994) Luttinger (1997), Persoon (1996), Pomeroy 1995, Alcala (1998),
Christie and White (1994), Gabrie et al (1994).
155 Funds for management of Indonesian PAs are generally very limited (e.g. Alder et al 1994).
156 It is unclear to the author whether this money is spent for general tourism management in Buton, for
Wakatobi management, or is repatriated to the central government.
153
80
future is likely to be relatively low, it is important to try and capture a larger share of
the tourist expenditure, for park management or local community projects.
Chapter 7
Conclusions
7.1 Limitations of study
This study was based on a six week field trip, and it is realised that, as for most types
of research, resources are very rarely enough to conduct the in depth research ideally
desired. It is believed, however, that the approach chosen used the limited resources
efficiently.
As acknowledged in section 1.4. a more thorough first hand knowledge of the views
of local people as to resource use, conservation and ecotourism would have added to
my understanding of the (potential) role of ecotourism in the Wakatobi. However, it is
felt, that spending considerable time interviewing key informants was a useful
approach to gaining an overall understanding of resource use conflicts in the
Wakatobi, and the role of ecotourism.
It is recognised that this study is a ‘snapshot’ of the situation in the Wakatobi, as seen
by myself and those interviewed in July and June this year. This fact was compensated
for, to some extent, by talking to people who had experienced the situation in the
Wakatobi for some length of time.
I was also aware of the potential difficulty in gaining an independent (and
objective157) view of the situation in the Wakatobi when working so closely with one
of the important stakeholders, Op Wal. The research plan was my own however, and
so, I am confident, are my conclusions.
As to my use of secondary literature I have used a common practice of transferring
results and experiences from ecotourism and conservation projects from all over the
81
world and assumed that they would be valid for the case of the Wakatobi Marine Park.
I realise that this may not always be meaningful since each case is made up of very
site specific parameters. Even so, I would argue that if sufficiently many studies show
similar results and experiences, then it can be concluded that the findings are
relatively robust and therefore to some extent transferable.
Finally in this section it should be mentioned that also socio-cultural impacts of
tourism are important, and that further studies of tourism in the Wakatobi should also
consider these.
7.2 Overall conclusions
This study has looked at the current and potential role of ecotourism for conservation
and livelihoods in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, and identified obstacles to
ecotourism succeeding as a ‘win-win’ strategy. The main conclusions can be
summarised under the headings ‘existing and potential role’ of ecotourism:
(1)
Existing role
(a) Of the five tourism operators in the Wakatobi, only two, Operation Wallacea and
Wakatobi Divers, were regarded as ecotour operators, in that they contribute both to
conservation and local well-being.
(b) The economic impacts of Op Wal’s operation were, however, considered
relatively small and insignificant for local livelihoods, since only a very limited
number of people on Kaledupa and Sampela benefit. Impacts are insignificant because
tourist numbers are low, but also because the leakage of tourist expenditure out of the
Wakatobi is extremely high. These economic benefits are not likely to be working as
conservation incentives for local people in the area around Hoga and Kaledupa,
because the benefits are small and not necessarily targeted those who do (the most
severe) damage to the reefs.
157
As far as this is possible in any research.
82
(c) Op Wal is contributing to conservation through community projects in Sampela
and through providing services for the Management of the park. Because of this and
the fact that the environmental impacts of its operation are relatively small, Op Wal
can be considered as an ecotour operator, despite failing to create local conservation
incentives through economic benefits from tourism.
(d) The leakage of tourism expenditure out of the Wakatobi is also very high for
Wakatobi Divers. The local economic impacts are therefore small, but in this case
very well targeted. Wakatobi Divers has built a close relationship with the Bajau of
the small village of Lamangau, for whom Wakatobi Divers seems to constitute an
important alternative livelihood. Economic benefits are working as direct conservation
incentives for local people, and most of Wakatobi Divers’ dive sites are left
untouched.
This symbiotic relationship seems to be enabled by clearly defined user rights and
responsibility for the reefs around Tolandono for the Bajau in Lamangau.
(e) Due to the relatively low number of visitors to the Wakatobi (app. 650 in 1999),
the importance of ecotourism for local livelihoods is relatively insignificant at present.
Op Wal and Wakatobi divers are contributing to conservation in their small, confined
areas of the Wakatobi, possibly not being of significance for the overall conservation
status of the Park. These small efforts can, however, be seen as important first ‘pilot
projects’ for a wider conservation strategy involving ecotourism in the Wakatobi.
(2) Potential role
(a) The number of tourists to the Wakatobi is at present limited by the difficult access
to the Marine Park. Given that no international airport is likely to be built in the near
future in Southeast Sulawesi, arrivals to Wakatobi will increase slowly, and maybe
approach 2,000 by 2004.
(b) Given the premise (1), ecotourism will only play an important role in conservation
and livelihoods of the reefs in the near future, if tourist expenditure is increased and/or
83
the leakage reduced. A large share of the revenue retained in the park will be needed
to target those who are involved in damaging activities. Entrance/user fees is a way of
generating such revenue.
(c) For ecotourism to play an important role in local livelihoods and conservation
through economic incentives in the Wakatobi, it is likely that outsider influence must
be controlled and local resource use rights installed and protected by the management
authorities. Only then can benefits from conservation efforts of particular reef areas be
guaranteed for a local community.
(d) As for many conservation and development projects, local involvement, is likely
to be crucial for the development of a viable dive-based tourism in the Park, not only
as
beneficiaries of tourism expenditure. Responsibility for their own resource
conservation and livelihoods must be a long term aim.
(e) The following main conclusion can be drawn: Ecotourism does not play an
important role for conservation and local livelihoods in the Wakatobi Marine park,
even though small-scale entrepreneurial conservation has succeeded through the
efforts of Wakatobi Divers.
Ecotourism has a potential for being gradually more important in the near future, but
only if the assessments in (b)-(d) are taken into account by the management
authorities.
84
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