Wakatobi National Park is located in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, and was declared a Marine National Park in 1997. Invited by the National Forestry Ministry responsible for national park management, WWF and TNC worked at the NP since 2002 to improve Management Effectiveness. In 2003 Wakatobi was declared a new Regency, which had implications especially for the zonation and management plan revisions.

Three strategies were developed and implemented including: Management Planning & Design; Monitoring & Surveillance for adaptive management; and Community Outreach and Empowerment for collaborative management.

In 2007 the new zoning plan was endorsed by the Forestry Ministry following a long process of many public consultation meetings that incorporated data from Biodiversity monitoring, perception monitoring and surveillance activities. Subsequently, the new Management Plan was endorsed in June 2008.

Currently, monitoring data shows a different status of the ecosystems, compliance of fishers with the zonation is higher and there is less violation of regulations in the park. Perception monitoring shows that more people understand and support the purpose of the park and that they are more involved in the parks management. Park authority is better educated and there is more media coverage of the beauty of ecosystems in the park. But the questions that we will address in this paper remains: Is the cost-benefit balance positive? Has it been worth it to invest so much and for long? Is Wakaktobi National Park already effectively managed?

By Anton Wijonarno, Lida Pet S, Wahju Rudianto, Wawan Ridwan, Veda Santiadji, Sugiyanta, Abdul Halim, Peter Mous

contact: awijonarno(at)wwf.or.id