Puzzling Confluence of Conservation and Ecotourism in Komodo National Park, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper examines the confluence of conservation and tourism development projects in Komodo National Park - the natural home of the renowned Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) and the ways local communities deal with its impacts. While the establishment of the park as a nature reserve in 1980 has indeed stirred processes of enclosure, dispossession, and dissolution of the commons of the native population, it still lacked the element of accumulation as the territory was transformed into a new commons --i.e. a new frontier of unique ecological and tourism-economic values. Governed under the conservation regime, locals can still use resources in the park through traditional and non-traditional resource uses such as the tourism economy. The arrival of ecotourism projects in recent years, however, has induced new waves of accumulation by dispossession by state and corporate actors. Interestingly, local communities have been resisting these processes by incorporating conservation and ecotourism paradigms-- beside their tribal claim of unique inter-species companionship with the Komodo dragon. These communities defend the old and new commons from private and public investments and secure their access to its use and benefit, both through community-owned tourism business and through conventional fishing livelihood. Based on engaged ethnographic research in the Komodo National Park in Flores, Indonesia, this article contributes to the discussion on the interlinkage between conservation, ecotourism, and community engagements in development.