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North Bali Reef Project
- A Real Winner!
Pemuteran's Taman Sari Karang Lestari
Project Wins
PATA Gold and ASEANTA Awards for Environmental Excellence.
(3/27/2005) Led by Bali Tourism legend, Agung
Prana who owns Taman Sari Resort at North Bali's Pemuteran Beach, the
Karang Lestari Pemuteran Project is gaining increasingly international
recognition as a model of community-based coral reef restoration and
conservation.
The object of much positive media coverage, including the Associated
Press and the BBC, the Karang Lestari Pemuteran Project
also recently won much-deserved further recognition with awards for
Conservation Excellence from ASEAN Travel Association (ASEANTA) and a
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Award in the environmental
category.
The Project has successfully constructed a "win-win" scenario in which local
fishermen are increasing their catches while the reefs surrounding the
Pemuteran area are becoming one of Indonesia's main diving destinations. The
villagers in the region have been quick to grasp the value of their
eco-tourism incomes, the long-term benefits to the local environment, and
the improved living standards of their families. Led and inspired by local
community leaders, daily marine patrols with Pecalang Laut, or local
marine guards, have largely eliminated detrimental bombing and cyanide
poisoning methods for harvesting reef and aquarium fish.
Over a five year period from 199-2004, a stretch of barren coral reef has
been transformed in a living reef system full of dense underwater
populations of diverse marine organisms. The reefs have been brought back to
life using "Biorock" artificial reef frames that stimulate rapid reef
growth 3 to 5 times faster than normal and increase coral survival by a
factor of 16 to 50 times.
A Community Effort
The Karang Lestari Pemturean Project has local hotels, dive shops,
village fisher folk, scientists and conservationists all working together
under the sponsorship and guidance of Taman Sari Resort. With coral
regeneration and fishing bans now in effect in the Bay, spinner dolphins
have returned in significant numbers. As a result, local villagers now take
visitors on dolphin-watching tours. Under the terms of a cooperative
agreement, the local village retains rights to all snorkeling income from
tourists. These lucrative income alternatives for the traditional fishing
community reinforce a basic understanding that each fish has more value in
the sea than in a net or on the end of a fishing line. And, with alternative
income avenues available, former environmental destroyers have become avid
proponents of conservation and eco-tourism, for economic and environmental
benefit.
Yayasan Karang Lestari Pemuteran
Yayasan Karang Lestari Pemuteran is a local
non-government-organization founded by the owner of Taman Sari Resort
in Pemuteran Bali, Mr. Agung Prana. Prana, who also owns a local travel
company, is a traditional Balinese leader widely respected for his many
contributions to Bali tourism. He is the past-chairman of the Bali Chapter
of Association of Indonesian Travel Agents (ASITA) and the recipient
of many national and international awards.
The Yayasan works together with the Global Coral Reef Alliance (GCRA)
a non-profit organization based in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA, that
pioneers modern coral reef restoration methods, conservation and sustainable
management.
These two NGO's are dynamic and complementary. The award-winning
community-based coral restoration project in Pemuteran Bali is becoming one
of the world's major educational and experimental facilities to further
coral reef regeneration, coastal protection and socialization of sustainable
management of coral reef ecosystems for conservation and tourism
development.
Shown on balidiscovery.com is the Karang Lestari Project's Founder
- Agung Prana.
© Bali Discovery Tours. Articles may be quoted and
reproduced if attributed to http://www.balidiscovery.com. All images and
graphics are copyright protected
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