#Indonesia - Government to boost sustainable tourism in small villages

Tangkahan village near Mount Leuser in North Sumatra and Pemuteran village in Bali are two of many villages in Indonesia that offer unique ecotourism attractions. 

They can set an example for other villages across the country to develop sustainable tourism as envisaged by the government during a United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) meeting recently.

Tourists could enjoy ecotourism activities in Tangkahan such as jungle trekking and elephant riding, said Valerina Daniel, the head of the Tourism Ministry’s sustainable tourism acceleration team. 

“In this village, people who used to be illegal loggers are now part of developing the tourism village by offering packages to tourists, which helps to preserve the forests,” she said in Jakarta recently.

Tourists visiting Pemuteran, which is known as a fishing village where residents are active in marine conservation, can go diving and snorkeling while participating in activities like coral conservation and feeding turtles. 

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said after the UNWTO meeting that the ministry wanted to create 2,000 tourism villages by the end of this year, an increase from the 1,734 created last year.

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 The program, managed in conjunction with the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry, is part of the government’s commitment to accelerate sustainable tourism.  

 According to UNWTO guidelines released in 2005, sustainable tourism should take full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impact while addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, environment and host community.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Regulation No. 14/2016 stipulates that sustainable tourism should empower local communities, preserve culture and conserve the environment.

Valerina said the development of tourism villages would be focused around the 10 priority destinations, or 10 New Balis, adding that the development was a sustainable tourism model that suited Indonesia, which has 75,000 villages across the archipelago.

“There are many villages in Indonesia and a village is the smallest instrument where we can directly empower the community by developing its potential while preserving its culture and environment based on the sustainable tourism principle,” she said.

He added that the development of the homestays and villages could be funded by state-owned enterprises’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

Another financing option would be using low-interest rate loans from banks with long-term maturity so that local players can thrive, Arief said. 

He added that the government would also establish more Sustainable Tourism Observatories (STOs) in seven locations, adding to the five existing STOs so far. The STOs monitor research and give recommendations to the local government on how to develop sustainable tourism.

The sustainable tourism program was a positive move for Indonesia, although it had yet to become the umbrella policy for general tourism development in the country, said Muhammad Baiquni, a tourism expert at Gadjah Mada University’s Center of Tourism Studies. 

“The sustainable tourism concept could be a good balancer for Indonesia’s tourism, which still tends to be quantity oriented instead of quality oriented,” added Baiquni. 

He, however, reminded the government to make sure that village tourism had a positive impact on society, culture and the environment, as well as putting local communities first so that sustainable tourism could be achieved. 

“Are the villagers benefitting and sovereign on their own land? Does tourism in the villages make their environment and socioeconomic situation better? All of these must be assessed.”

Baiquni suggested that the government should focus on creating tourism villages that were of high standards and sustainable, rather than setting a specific target for homestays and villages.

Source - TheJakartaPost

#Thailand - Conservation plan for hornbills

THE NATIONAL Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department announced yesterday that it would develop a national plan for the management and conservation of hornbills.

 This plan would be in line with an international action plan introduced yesterday for the critically endangered helmeted hornbill.

A working group will be set up to develop the national plan, Pinsak Suraswadi, the department’s deputy director-general, said.

He said Thailand is committed to protecting the majestic bird’s habitat as well as reducing trafficking and trade of the bright-billed bird. The future plan will also focus on reintroduction programmes so hornbill populations can be restored in natural habitats.

 The country also recognises the importance of research and training while engaging all sectors, he said, and thus the Centre for Research and Training of Hornbill Conservation will be created.

Pinsak also praised the international plan and lauded Thailand’s decision to adopt it, which marks a watershed in efforts to preserve the species.

“We are very pleased to support hornbill conservation in the region,” he said at a press conference. “Today will be a great starting point for moving forward together to save our species.”

After the conference, a group of bird experts, including members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, got together to discuss the plan. 

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 Found in regions ranging from Africa to Asia, the birds are facing increasing threats of extinction despite their critical ecological roles.

Helmeted hornbills, with specific home ranges in the forests of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, are of a critical concern to ecologists as demands for the bright yellow and black casques atop their bills have surged in recent years, particularly in China for carved ornaments.

This is despite the fact that the species has been placed under the protection of the Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which has banned all kinds of trade since 1975.

In 2015, global bird experts came together to address the situation at Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), prompting the species to be up-listed from “near threatened” to “critically endangered” by BirdLife International.

 A Helmeted Hornbill Working Group (HHWG) was also created under the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

A year later, a resolution calling for an action plan for helmeted hornbill conservation was issued at the IUCN World Conservation Congress and the CITES CoP17, backed by members of the HHWG, while urging all CITES parties to take necessary steps to develop and implement the action plan.

This 10-year, wide-ranging conservation strategy calls for international collaboration and an increase in financial resources to scale up conservation attention aimed at targeted population recovery across the species’ range.

A key priority is the need to eliminate trafficking and trade in helmeted hornbills and derivatives by ensuring that the CITES Appendix I listing for the species is effectively implemented.

 Anuj Jain from BirdLife International (Asia) and a coordinator of the HHWG, said: “Unless we protect key population strongholds and reduce international demand, we stand little chance to save the helmeted hornbill.”

Thailand is an important country for the species, with high levels of protection. Most long-term research on the species has been by the Hornbill Research Foundation.

Source - TheNation

Exhibit explores a transforming #Myanmar (Burma)

However, sometimes a single photo can say more than the longest news piece or essay.

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This idea is now on display at the Catching the Light exhibit and book launch at Myanmar Deitta until May 14..
The exhibit showcases the work of German photographer Birgit Neiser, who has been visiting here since the early 1980s..
“On my first trip, we couldn’t see a lot of Myanmar, but I became fascinated by the culture and people,” she told Weekend, recounting her 1981 trip..
Like many Europeans, Neiser first came to Myanmar as a backpacker but then returned in 2010 to support an NGO in the Delta region. Since then, she has spent a couple of months here every year.

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Catching the Light focuses on the dramatic changes from the period 2010 to 2016.
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“Looking back, I feel that the country has changed more between 2010 and 2017 than between 1981 and 2010.”
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The black and white images deftly portray the political, economic and cultural transformations.
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“By documenting today’s Myanmar, my photos might serve as a point of reference in decades to come. My goal was to capture the status quo as something to come back to in the future,” she said.
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“The country will continue to change radically so I tried to record as many unique moments of this time as possible.”
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Neiser discussed with Weekend one of her more unforgettable moments on this journey – documenting an elephant camp in the forest near Putao.

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She said at the camp, the elephants worked hard to pull timber out of the forest and push it onto a truck from an elevated embankment.

“They are highly skilled and intuitive; when one log was close to rolling off the truck, they immediately tried to stop it from falling with two elephants working as a team to grab the log and heave it back onto the truck,” she said.

“The elephants seemed to enjoy the challenges they faced and I interpreted in their eyes the same proud look I saw on their mahouts at the end of the day.”

She also travelled using all sorts of local modes of transport including on the back of a timber truck in the Kachin mountains, on a motorbike through Northern Shan State and on board an old fishing vessel in the Andaman Sea.
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“If I have been able to capture the spirit of Myanmar, even scratch on its surface, I am happy.”
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“An achievement for me would be to make others understand – at least to some extent – the spirit of the country and to give back to Myanmar people not only the pictures that I took of them but also show remote corners of the country where many have not travelled.”
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During her current trip, Neiser will also do some photography in Mandalay.
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Neiser’s work has previously been displayed at the National Museum Yangon where her photographs of the country were juxtaposed with old photographs taken by Christine Scherman, another German documentary photographer who had travelled in Myanmar 100 years ago.
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“Everyone in Myanmar has become a photographer through mobile phones. Also there are many more professional photographers around than before,” she said.
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“This is wonderful, especially because the Myanmar photographers will hopefully introduce some new styles and fresh ideas to photography.”
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Myanmar Deitta is at 49 44th Street, Botahtaung Township.

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Source - MMTIMES