Komodo Naional Park

Komodo National Park encompasses a lot of water and islands west of Labuanbajo. If you want to go to Rinca or Komodo islands, or dive in the park you will have to buy a 3 day park pass for 15 $USD. Money from such user fees goes into conservation efforts (including armed patrols) that are apparently overseen by the WWF.

Rinca Island (Indonesian: Rinca Kecil or Rinca Pulau) is a more convenient place to see Komodo Dragons than Komodo island. Some dive operators might be convinced to combine a stop at the island with a days diving. There are big dragons that are often right in front of the pier when people arrive.

Scuba Diving within the park is excellent. There are three main dive operators that offer day dives as well as live aboard opportunities: Bajo Dive Club, Dive Komodo, and Reef Seekers. The Komodo Diving dive master is a true enthusiast of manta rays (clearly evident by the tattoo on his back), who often spots manta rays from the boat between dives. He has been known to join divers in jumping into the water with snorkel gear to have a look at them.

Gili Matra Marine Natural Recreation Park – West Nusa Tenggara Province – Indonesia

Gili Matra Marine Natural Recreation Park has a total area of approximately 2,954 hectares, consists of 3 islands namely Gili Meno (± 150 hectares), Gili Air (± 175 hectares), Gili Trawangan (± 340 hectares), and ± 2,289 hectares of marine area. In 1993, Gili was designated a recreation park under the Minister of Forestry Decree Number 85/Kpts-II/1993, dated 16 February 1993, based on the proposal of the Governor of West Nusa Tenggara Province.

Management Objectives
The management of Gili is based on Act Number 5 of 1990 concerning Conservation of Living Resources and Their Ecosystems. Therefore, the aim of the management of this Park is to protect the Park and its ecosystems, and also to utilize in sustainable way, the parks resources. The resources should be used for research, science, education, recreation and tourism purposes. The main objectives of the management of Gili are outlined as follows:

The main objectives of the management of Gili are outlined as follows:
1. To promote sustainable use of the Park’s resources.
2. To encourage and integrate local participation in park management to protect biological values of the park and to eliminate further disturbances or alteration of natural habitats, to protect endangered and threatened wild animal species and their habitats, to maintain the locations designated for recreation and tourism development, to maintain sustainable use of commercial fish habitats, and to achieve compatible use and careful management of species’ and their habitats.

Management Authority
The responsible institution to manage Gili is the Natural Resources Conservation Office of West Nusa Tenggara (Balai Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam Nusa Tenggara Barat) under the Directorate of Forest Protection And Nature Conservation (DG of PHPA), Ministry of Forestry, Indonesia.

Problems
The actual problems in Gili are those faced directly such as fishing using bomb blasting and poisoning. Anticipating the problems, sources of problems are first identified and then addressed. To do so, coordination among related institutions and parties is required since the problems cannot be managed by only a single agency such as West Nusa Tenggara Natural Resources Conservation Office.

Based on continual identification, the problem sources can be grouped into management intensity, social-economic conditions of the local communities, and the awareness of communities. However, the Park’s management ability is still limited. This is due to lack of facilities, lack of expertise in marine ecology, limited human resources both in quality and quantity, and lack of technical guidance.

Many related institutions and parties are not really aware of the designation of Gili as a Park. Therefore, some conflicts between biodiversity conservation efforts and other development activities still exist. Thus, the benefits from Park management are not easily observed.

Other problems in Gili include muro-ami fishing. This method is very destructive to coral reefs, therefore West Nusa Tenggara Natural Resources Conservation Office in collaboration with Taskforce Gili Patrols, must patrol and inform users not to engage in this sort of fishing, especially in the conservation area.

In July 2002, Taskforce Gili Patrols and West Nusa Tenggara Natural Resources Conservation Office caught a group of muro-ami users. This case was solved using awiq-awiq, a law based on local customs. Fortunately, blasting and poisoning of fish and other marine species has not been observed stopped since August 2000.

source :http://lombokislands.com

The beauty of Raja Ampat Enchantment

The archipelago is located in a remote area in West Papua that stores a million beauty beneath the sea, so that is recognized as one of the 10 best dive of the world. 

Raja Raja Ampat, or Four is an archipelago consisting of more than 1,500 small islands that surround the four main islands, namely Misool, Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo. The archipelago is part of the province of West Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya Province. 

Located at the northwestern end, Cendrawasih covering more than 9.8 million acres (40,000 km ²) consists of land and sea, Raja Ampat is the largest marine national park in Indonesia. 

Enchantment under the marine and natural resources, the mainstay of tourism competition through the Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia and in the world. This area is known as a center for tropical natural resources of the world's richest. 

According to Conservation International, a marine survey agency indicates that the diversity of marine life in the area of ​​Raja Ampat is the highest recorded on Earth. 

The diversity in Raja Ampat is much greater than other regions, such as entry in the Coral Triangle of Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, where the Coral Triangle is the heart of the biodiversity of coral reefs of the world, thus making the Raja Ampat is possible to have coral reef ecosystem the richest in the world. 

Because it has a large area of ​​coral colonies along with sea surface temperature is relatively high, it also showed that the coral reefs of Raja Ampat are relatively resistant to threats like coral bleaching and coral disease, which now jeopardize the survival of coral reef ecosystems around the world. Also due to the Raja Ampat islands are remote and relatively undisturbed by humans. 

The diversity of the high seas in Raja Ampat is strongly influenced by its position between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, so the coral and fish larvae more easily shared between the two oceans. 

Raja Ampat's coral diversity, resilience, and its role as a source of spread of the larvae makes it a global priority for marine protection. 

More than 1070 species of fish, 537 species of coral (96% of all outstanding scleratinia recorded from Indonesia are likely to occur on islands), and 699 species of mollusks with a surprising variety of marine life. 

In some areas there is a set of big fish and shark sightings on a regular basis, such as wobbegongs. 

Raja Ampat has been opened for seven years, because it is located in remote areas, infrastructure is inadequate. To reach the Raja Ampat, tourists have to down sea along the Sorong as far as 71 km to arrive in Raja Ampat. 

To introduce to the world, Raja Ampat to open call center in Bali. Because the main purpose Bali as foreign tourists to visit Indonesia. 

Nothing wrong when there is a phrase which describes the natural beauty of Raja Ampat Islands, saying that, "Maybe God is smiling when you're creating the King of AMPAT