Thailand's Maya Bay, made famous by the 2000 Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach, was also closed last year, after thousands of tourists and the boats that brought them severely damaged coral reefs. The Philippines closed Boracay island to tourists for six months last year and now imposes limits on the number of arrivals. Indonesia is not the only Southeast Asian nation wrestling with sustainable tourism, trying to balance the need for income with the need to protect the environment. "We do really hope the national government and local government can work together to produce a comprehensive plan for the long-term management of Komodo park," Aminuddin tells NPR via email. That's far below the government target of 500,000 visitors. "I don't think I expected it to be this amazing."Ī 2018 World Wildlife Fund study showed Komodo National Park can safely handle about 150,000 divers and another 170,000 visitors on land per year, if managed properly, says Indarwati Aminuddin, WWF's Indonesia marine tourism manager. "I expected it to be amazing," says Allison Place, a tourist from New Jersey, as she rests between dives on a boat. Amid the coral, divers can see white- and black-tipped reef sharks, manta rays, blue-spotted stingrays, marble rays, cuttlefish, jellyfish, wrasse, puffer fish and more. The park also boasts some of the best diving in Indonesia, if not the world. "And plenty types of snakes - spitting cobras, Russell's viper, green vipers and blue vipers, and all these animals are wild. "Buffaloes, deers, boars and many types of birds," says Ramli. In addition to Komodo dragons, the park is home to plenty of other wildlife. That's roughly double the number that came last year. The central government wants to see 500,000 tourists come to Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park on Flores, this year. A handful of islands in the park and on Indonesia's Flores island are the only places in the world to see Komodo dragons in the wild.
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