Komodo National Park | Komodo Watch

Komodo Watch

October 1999 Issue
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November 2000 Issue
March 2001 Issue
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March 2002 Issue

October Monthly Update

Spice Island Cruises informs us that on October 15th, 1999 they will cease all operations in Indonesia, and more particularly, cruises between Bali and Darwin on due to the sale of their cruiseship Oceanic Odyssey. The management is currently looking at a number of replacement vessels and hope to be operational again in the very near future. Until that time, tourist arrivals in Komodo National Park will decline dramatically as Spice Island Cruises accounted for nearly 50% of all visitors. Their professionalism will be sorely missed in the Indonesian tourism industry.

On a different note, the film crew for the TV series Wild Things has just returned from Komodo where they were filming a new segment on the Komodo dragons featuring Lawrence Blair of Ring of Fire fame. The film crew worked aboard the chartered vessel Evening Star, and utilized divemaster Mark Heighes services to capture some amazing underwater footage as well. We look forward to viewing the new segments which are due for broadcast in the next few months.

Have you read the article on the Komodo Dragon by Caludio Ciofi in the March 1999 issue of Scientific American ? If you are interested in diving, checkout the September issue of Undercurrent (vol. 14, no. 9) for news of diving in Komodo.

Current Projects

The Friends of Komodo are currently at work on getting the Komodo National Park Website online. We are in the preliminary stages of the organization of the first Komodo U/W Photo Contest scheduled for Oct of the year 2000. Our next project will be to setup an online store to sell Komodo Dragon related products all of which will be made in Indonesia. All proceeds will be used to further our primary goal of setting up a marine research station in Komodo National Park.

The Komodo Foundation is proud to welcome Dr Putra Sastrawan, presently the Vice Chancellor (and former Dean of Biology) of Udayana University in Bali, to the board of directors of the Komodo Foundation. Dr Sastrawan has been involved with research on Komodo island since 1969, and worked closely with Dr. Walter Auffenberg in Komodo during the research for his seminal study of the Komodo dragon.

For the past thirty years, Dr Sastrawan has continued his own research into the behavior and biology of the Komodo dragon and is the current director of the Komodo International Research Centre based in Udayana University. In 1998 he worked with Claudio Ciofi from the London Zoological Society on collecting saliva and blood samples from Komodo dragons in the wild as part of a program of DNA mapping for the species. He is currently engaged in research to determine the sex ratio at birth of Komodo hatchlings in the wild.

News Flash

1999 Award

Helen Fox is the 1999 ISRS/CMC Coral Reef Fellowship Recipient

The International Society for Reef Studies and the Center for Marine Conservation announced today that their 1999 Coral Reef Fellowship Award was made to Helen Fox, University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Fox will work in Indonesia's Komodo National Park where she will assess damage to coral reefs from dynamite fishing, also known as "blast" fishing. She will assess factors that affect recovery of blast sites and she will develop methods to help accelerate recovery of coral reefs damaged by this destructive fishing practice. It is well known that blast fishing causes widespread and devastating damage to coral reefs. Despite being illegal, blast fishing is reported to cause significant reef degradation throughout the South Pacific. Specifically, Ms. Fox will: 1) evaluate how coral cover at various spatial scales correlates with recruitment; 2) determine how rubble produced at the blast sites affects coral recruitment in various flow regimes; 3) manipulate substrate stability and rugosity to evaluate their effects on coral recruitment rates; and 4) construct successionals trends based on changes in community composition by comparing blast sites of known age with nearby unblasted sites. Komodo National Park is located in eastern Indonesia and includes areas where significant blast fishing previously occurred, but has declined dramatically in recent years due to management efforts. This is the third ISRS/CMC Fellowship award, with previous winners working in Belize and the Philippines. The award is for one year and is worth $14,000.

Komodo National Park
Balai Taman Nasional Komodo
Labuanbajo, Flores NTT Indonesia
Tel: 62.358.41004, 41005
Fax: 62.385.41006
E-mail : tnkomodo@indosat.net.id
The official website of The Komodo National Park: www.komodonationalpark.org

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