The Plight of Indonesia's Jurassic Park
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
There's a feeling of strangeness as you walk the beaten path and enter the Komodo National Park. Where have all the giant reptiles gone? Maybe they have gone to the far corners of the island? Or maybe, as many fear, their number has simply diminished to only a few hiding away deeper in the forest?
Komodo National Park is unlike Jurassic Park as one would imagine, teeming with the prehistoric Komodo dragons. Increasingly the largest lizards in the world are deprived of their traditional habitat. Hunters are indiscriminately killing deer, their animal of prey. Conservation measures clash with the interest of the local population for living space. Will the park, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996, be forgotten and left to waste away?
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THE sun was directly overhead. But its rays were unable to strike Zacharias's head because they were blocked by the natural cool canopy of large trees. Escorted by his colleagues, the group moved stealthily. The hands of the Loh Liang ranger held a staff with a forked end. That afternoon, in the middle of March they had joined TEMPO in trying our luck to look for Komodo dragons, in Komodo National Park, East Nusa Tenggara.
It turned out it wa
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