Bird-watching Tourism

KOMPAS/VIDELIS JEMALI

Idris Tinulele

Idris Tinulele, 45, said he was frustrated from seeing tour guides misinforming foreign visitors. He wished to change things. Eventually, he decided to become a bird-watching tour guide. Business was quiet at the beginning, but today, bird-watching tourism is contributing greatly to driving the local economy.

“At first, I didn’t plan to be a bird-watching tour guide. An incident in 2007 [of a tour guide giving wrong information] made me decide to become a tour guide, because I didn’t want tourists being misinformed,” Idris said in an interview on Thursday (14/9) at his house in Wuasa village, North Lore district, Poso regency, Central Sulawesi.

Wuasa is located 120 kilometers to the south of the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu.

In the five years since 2007, few travelers were interested in the bird-watching tour offered at Lore Lindu National Park. During this period, no more than 20 travelers were interested in Idris’s bird-watching tour. The lack of interest, however, did not deter him.

Idris’s patience in guiding bird-watching tours paid off in 2012. Since then, 600 foreign travelers have taken his tour every year, with the number of tours peaking between July and September. “I look at the first five years as a promotional period for foreign travelers,” said the husband of Novlita Abe, 34.

Idris’s bird-watching tour has contributed significantly to the local economy. Foreign tourists on average spend four nights in accommodations in Wuasa or in Palu. In Wuasa, accommodation costs Rp 250,000 (US$18.5) per room per night. Foreign tourists contribute roughly Rp 600 million a year in accommodation fees to the local economy.

Of this amount, Rp 60 million in annual taxes is paid to the regional treasury. An additional income of Rp 360 million a year comes from the entrance fee to Lore Lindu National Park’s bird-watching area. Every visitor pays a daily rate of Rp 150,000 to enter the bird-watching area.

“From these calculations, I can say that the bird-watching tour is among the most profitable tours here,” said Idris, the eighth of 10 children of his parents Sagela Tinulele and Maria Taloe.

Idris usually receives tourists brought in by Central Sulawesi travel agencies in Palu or North Sulawesi agencies in Manado. There are also foreign tour groups that contact Idris directly. He gets paid Rp 1 million a day for his services.

Idris is the only local bird-watching tour guide at Lore Lindu National Park. Currently, he is training four local youths as bird-watching tour guides.

A majority of the foreign tourists who take Idris’s tours come from the UK, the US and Canada. In the last two years, Asian tourists, including those from Thailand, South Korea, China and Taiwan, have been joining his tours as well. One tour group usually comprises nine tourists.

Knowledge of birds

Introducing Lore Lindu National Park, published in 2003 by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), cites the national park as a bird sanctuary. Its position on the Wallace Line that separates Asian and Australian fauna is a blessing. Of the 384 bird species in Sulawesi, 267 (70 percent) are found in the 217,991.18-hectare national park. Seventy-one percent of the bird species in the biosphere reserve are endemic to either the national park or Sulawesi.

Endemic Sulawesi birds found in Lore Lindu National Park include hornbills (Bucerotidae) and the maleo (Macrocephalon maleo). These two birds are considered rare species.

Bird species endemic to Lore Lindu National Park include the geomalia, or Sulawesi mountain thrush (Zoothera henrichi), the Sulawesi thrush (Cataponera turdoides), the great shortwing (Heinrichia calligyna) and the yellow-flanked or olive-flanked whistler (Hylocitrea bonensis). In the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the geomalia is listed as near threatened. The Sulawesi thrush, yellow-flanked whistler and great shortwing are listed as low extinction risk.

Idris said that, during sunny weather at bird-watching spots around Telaga Tambing in Sedoa village, North Lore, tourists could observe between 80 and 100 kinds of birds. “During bad weather, tourists will still be able to see at least 50 types of birds,” said the father of three, adding that the best time for watching birds was between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Apart from the spots near Telaga Tambing, seven other locations are favorites among bird-watchers: the northern part of Lore Lindu National Park between Sigimpu village of Palolo district and Bora village of Biromaru district in Sigi regency; between between Sadaunta and Toro villages of Kulawi district in Sigi regency; between Sedoa village of North Lore district and Torire village of Central Lore district in Napu Valley. Napu Valley comprises the districts of North Lore, East Lore and Lore Peore.

Nature lovers

Idris was first introduced to bird-watching in 1997, when he was an active member of the Forestry Department’s nature lovers club at Tadulako University. He was also involved at the time with The Nature Conservancy team monitoring Lore Lindu National Park’s maleo bird population. After the research project, he began to document the local bird species. He completed his data while he was on a LIPI team documenting the bird species in the national park.

“From these journeys, I learned a great deal about local birds, either from observation or from hearing their calls,” said Idris on Thursday (14/9) in Wuasa. With this knowledge, Idris had no problem guiding bird-watching tourists, most of whom are scientists or researchers in their home countries.

From his experiences guiding bird-watching tours, Idris said he saw great potential in bird-watching tourism. Unfortunately, tourism is not managed properly in the region. Promotion is lacking and government involvement is almost non-existent.

Furthermore, access to bird-watching spots in Lore Lindu National Park has yet to be opened. Access roads are important to facilitate tourists’ mobility. The only properly managed bird-watching spot with an observation tent is found near Telaga Tambing

“If we focus on bird-watching tourism, I believe that tourists will spend more time exploring. Lore Lindu National Park is excellent in ways seldom found in other bird-watching tourist areas,” Idris said.

Another bird-watching tourist destination in Sulawesi is Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park, located in the provinces of North Sulawesi and Gorontalo.

For Idris, bird-watching tourism is a way to utilize the faunal wealth of tropical forests to bring prosperity to local communities. It would be a shame if the wealth of fauna at Lore Lindu National Park is not managed properly and sustainably to improve people’s welfare.