Background
Indonesia covers only 1.3% of the earth’s surface, yet harbours
10% of all flowering plants, 12% of the world’s mammals, 16% of
the world’s reptiles and amphibians, 17% of all birds, and more
than a quarter of known marine and freshwater fish species. Overall,
it is one of the richest countries in terms of biological diversity.
The many islands of the archipelago support a wide range and variety
of habitats, from lowland rainforests, mangroves, savannah grassland,
swamp forests and limestone hills, to mountain forest, alpine meadows
and snowcapped mountains near the equator.
Indonesia therefore has great potential for development of ecotourism.
However, the threat to biodiversity is also high with some apparent threats
such as illegal logging, hunting, and other forms of destructive utilization
of natural resources. Hence, a sustainable form of nature utilization,
for instance ecotourism, is one of the alternative options in making
the most of nature potential and at the same time conserving it.
In the National Development Guidelines 1999, tourism in Indonesia has
to be developed through an integrated system, interdisciplinary, participatory
approach, using economical and technical criteria, ergonomic, socio-cultural
sensitivity, energy saving, nature conservation and minimizing the environmental
impact. The old tourism development approach has been changed to increase
the welfare of local people that participate in tourism.
Based on that fact, the opportunity to develop ecotourism
as a strategy to build Sustainable Tourism is huge. INDECON found
that ecotourism is a comprehensive tool to conserve biodiversity and to
involve local communities and organization in a participatory way to derive
maximum benefits in a sustainable way. INDECON believe that ecotourism,
has a potential to improve the quality of the environment, cultural values,
local community prosperity and quality of human relation in general.
Started in 1995, INDECON was initiated by Conservation International
Indonesia, The Institute for Indonesia Tourism Studies and Bina Swadaya
Tours. In 1999, INDECON had grown and announced its legal entity as INDECON
by the notary act no. 2, January 5, 1999.
INDECON helps link ecotourists with a wide range of opportunities
throughout Indonesia.
