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How the ACB, through the Small Grants Programme, capacitated the local communities in the buffer zone of Way Kambas National Park (WKNP) in Indonesia to develop ecotourism services that benefit both humans and wildlife.

Braja Harjosari, a picturesque village in the buffer zone of WKNP, is popular for its lush landscape, vibrant wildlife, and fertile farmlands. However, the idyllic setting also faces a unique challenge—finding a way for humans and elephants to live together in harmony.

For Agus, a 45-year-old resident of Brajah Harjosari, this struggle is all too familiar. Local communities and elephants often clash as they compete for the same space and resources, inevitably enroaching into each other’s territories. Almost every night, wild elephants raid the villagers’ corn and pineapple fields, wreaking havoc on their crops and properties, as well as causing injuries and casualties on both sides.

“These elephants used to forage on our crops and destroyed our properties. Because this has continued for decades, people in our village saw them as enemies,” Agus shared.

Agus of POKDARWIS is a staunch advocate of pursuing alternative sources of livelihood to reduce pressures on Way Kambas National Park

The safety concerns for both humans and elephants have created a conflict-ridden relationship. The raids severely impacted villagers’ livelihoods, pushing some to venture into the park in search of food.

Recognising that solving this complex issue requires collective effort, Agus and fellow villagers formed the POKDARWIS Braja Harjosari in 2015 and laid the foundation for more organised ecotourism activities in the village.

While the COVID-19 pandemic halted the tours in WKNP from 2020 to November 2023, POKDARWIS still worked on improving its services and inviting more community-based enterprises in its circle.

With a micro-grant they received from SGP in 2022, they jump-started a comprehensive ecotourism projectin their village and other nearby villages and eventually became a cooperative.

POKDARWIS or Kelompok Sadar Wisata in Bahasa, meaning “tourism awareness group”, lived up to its name by developing tourism service packages that include all aspects of ecotourism in their area. A total of 51 locals were trained on various ecotourism-related skills. This included 11 homestay owners, who learned how to welcome guests, manage housekeeping, standardise facilities, serve food, and speak basic English. Another 16 locals participated in focus group discussions, where they learned about organisation and financial management before coming together to form a tourism service cooperative. Additionally, 24 villagers underwent training on the whole gamut of nature tourism to boost their knowledge of biodiversity, birdwatching, wildlife observation, and managing day tours and a night safari.

Following these capacity building efforts, POKDARWIS worked with the locals and partners to create ecotourism packages centred on 12 unique activities for visitors, including agro-tourism, birdwatching, night safari, cultural shows, culinary adventures, elephant feeding, and homestays in the village, among other activities.

The ecotourism package of POKDARWIS includes homestay for local and foreign visitors of Way Kambas National Park

POKDARWIS Braja Harjosari has grown into a thriving ecotourism hub, offering a wide array of services. The cooperative sells assorted souvenirs and offers transportation services for local and foreign tourists, as well as wildlife enthusiasts who flock to witness Way Kambas’ biodiversity and way of life up close. Part of its tours are visits to community-based organisations like Rajut Savana for crochet-making and Alas Kambas Marketing Cooperative for honey production.

As soon as the WKNP re-opened to tourists in December 2023, the cooperative included the Elephant Training Center or PLG among the destinations offered in their tours.

“The conflict has been a way for us to work together with SGP, its service provider Penabulu Foundation, and the park management in discovering our potential. Through the help we received, we can now run our homestay, manage the cooperative’s money, and explore other income-generating activities. We do not need to go inside the park because we have everything here,” says Agus.

In addition to creating a sustainable source of income for village members, the tour packages have become key to resolving the human- elephant conflicts in the area. Since the elephants have become a main point of interest among tourists, the villagers now view the animals not as competitors for resources but as their biggest allies in improving their livelihood.

The villagers also partnered with WKNP authorities and neighbouring towns to ensure the welfare of these magnificent animals. Using the SGP grant, they worked together to strengthen the Elephant Response Units (ERUs) composed of locals working with trained elephants. Guard huts at several points were constructed, GPS collars were procured and installed on some wild elephants to trace their movements, and equipment and safety gears were supplied to the Masarakat Mitra Porhut or MMP (Forest Police).

The team that helps reduce the negative interactions between the community and wildlife at Braja Harjosari in Way Kambas National Park

To date, there are 10 camps with a total of 55 trained elephants, who not only play a critical role in conservation, but also participate in tourist activities such as feeding sessions, allowing visitors to interact with them in a safe and educational environment.

A keen supporter of POKDARWIS and the elephants is Gadjah Society, which is composed of collectors of randomly generated non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum Blockchain and is also a social project dedicated to elephant conservation. The cooperative has an agreement for regular visits with members of Gadjah Society. They also have similar arrangements with the travel agency Odyssey Institute and Local Escape.

POKDARWIS takes great pride in empowering the local community, and fostering the development of ecotourism as a strategy for indirectly mitigating human-wildlife conflict in the WKNP buffer zone.

“The capacity of the targeted participants has increased, a management system has been established with the tourism service cooperative, and the total earning of income from ecotourism has doubled up to IDR 40 million (EUR 2,330.63) from the previous IDR 20 million (EUR 1,165.31),” shares I Wayan Toni Candra, head of POKDARWIS.

Along with self-sufficiency in sustainable ecotourism management, Toni says “the increased revenue is expected to help the cooperative to further develop its facilities and services and contribute more to the human-elephant conflict mitigation efforts.”

The true cornerstone of the project’s success lies in the remarkable shift in the local communities’ perspective. From viewing elephants as adversaries, they now consider them their greatest allies—a testament to the power of how cooperation and conservation can transform conflict into coexistence. Today, both the villagers and the gentle giants share the landscape of Braja Harjosari in harmony, each calling it home.

“This project has been contributing to human resources capacity building in ecotourism development. It has contributed to the conservation efforts in WKNP by empowering the local communities affected by human-elephant conflict to have alternative sources of income through the sustainable implementation of ecotourism.”

— I Wayan Toni Candra, Head of POKDARWIS