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At dusk, the mountains of Indonesia's
Komodo National Park look like temples reaching towards
the sky. What local conservationist Hesti Widodo realizes-and
what she hopes to make others aware of-is that the mountains
of Komodo, as well as its grasslands and waters, are
temples, receptacles of the earth's most precious gifts.
Her mission is urgent: Komodo's remarkable
plant and animal resources are being depleted by wildlife
poaching and even blast fishing (the practice of using
dynamite that kills not only fish but vast amounts of
coral and other organisms). It is these threats and
others, caused in part by a lack of environmental awareness,
that Hesti will tackle, working with Rare and The Nature
Conservancy on a Pride campaign beginning this fall.
Hesti explains, "I'd like to see
people have more understanding about the importance
of their environment and how it links with their lives."
Komodo National Park, a World Heritage
site and part of a four-year Rare-United Nations project
to develop ways to use ecotourism to support conservation
and community development, is an ideal setting for a
Pride Campaign. Hiding in the crevices of Komodo's mountains,
its broad savannahs, and below the surface of its clear
waters are some of the world's threatened plant and
animal species: water buffalo and Timor deer, manatees
and manta rays, more than a 1,000 species of tropical
fish, fragile corals, and the famed Komodo Dragon.
There are also 4,000 people living in
and around the park who depend upon these resources
for their survival. Through this project, Rare is working
to create new sources of employment through ecotourism
that are both healthier for the park and more profitable
for struggling communities. Major partners in this project
include the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, United Nations
Environment Programme, United Nations Foundation, Aveda
Corporation, Komodo National Park, and The Nature Conservancy.
Hesti is considering three candidates
for the focus of her Pride campaign, a grassroots marketing
project which will employ everything from puppet shows
to music videos to build community awareness of the
environment: the Komodo Dragon, a twelve foot long meat-eating
lizard; the manta ray, whose flat form can be seen gliding
underneath the surface of Komodo's waters; and the dugong,
or "sea cow," a relative of the manatee.
"I am excited," says
Hesti, who is currently at Rare's Conservation Education
training center at the University of Kent at Canterbury,
England, "to return to Komodo and do an amazing
campaign, which will see the good result of change in
the attitude and mind set of the local community toward
sustainable resources and management of the park."
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