By: Hijrah Nasir

Lampung Province has enormous tourism potential. One of the potentials is in the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park area. The existence of tourist attractions that are still preserved in their natural beauty at that location is realized to be able to become an alternative business for the community without eliminating the principles of conservation in it. As The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) in 1990 defined the definition of ecotourism as responsible travel to natural places by preserving the environment and improving the welfare of the local population.

In sustainable community economic development, one of the efforts encouraged by WWF Indonesia is ecotourism, where WWF has collaborated and assisted the community in developing, promoting and marketing ecotourism products, including in Lampung Province. In order to encourage community capacity building in managing ecotourism, WWF Indonesia held Ecotourism/Sustainable Tourism Planning Training activities that took place from April 20 - 23, 2017 at Kubu Perahu Resort, Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park located in West Lampung Regency. The 3-day training was facilitated by Iwan Mucipto who is a WWF consultant for ecotourism programs and Rakata Adventure.

The training presented participants from the tourism management community in the buffer villages of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, including the Forum Lestari Sejahtera Kubu Perahu Village (West Lampung), Dwipangga Abadi group Pemerihan Village (Pesisir Barat Regency), Sedayu Village and Sukaraja Village (Tanggamus), Tugu Ratu Village and Sukamarga Village (West Lampung Regency) as well as from the Kubu Perahu Tourism Management Unit (UPW), Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park Office.

This training aims to increase community capacity in ecotourism management, and develop integrated planning and ecotourism programs in their respective villages. The training was divided into several sessions containing material on ecotourism, including the tourism paradigm, sustainable tourism, 3 pillars of tourism business, including marketing strategies, building tourism networks, developing products, luxury experiences, building a vision for tourism development, followed by a session on the preparation of integrated planning of the parties and the preparation of draft planning documents and programs, as well as a visit session to the Kubu Perahu tourist site which is an area within the TNBBS area which has now become a tourist destination in the West Lampung area.

In his presentation, Setyo Ramadi as Director of Rakata explained that tourism has the concept of "riding" on something that already exists. In the sense that tourism is not something that must be created and stand alone, but it hitchhikes on something that is already good. For example, waste management with a sustainable concept can become a tourist attraction by giving the name "garbage tourism" or seeing community activities that make pottery named "pottery tourism". It is realized that the tourism industry is able to become a locomotive for other industries such as the lodging industry, food services, transportation, souvenirs, and so on. But behind that, tourism can also be a double-edged sword. If it is not managed with the principles of sustainability and justice, then ecotourism will not provide benefits to the community, it even tends to be detrimental.

In managing tourism in their own area, people are asked not to depend on outside assistance, but to empower their own potential. So far, tourist sites within the TNBBS area have been a challenge, especially licensing. However, the TNBBS Center said that the government is currently trying to encourage the existence of TNBBS to be able to provide welfare for the surrounding community. One way is to develop ecotourism. This was conveyed by the Minister of Environment and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia, Siti Nurbaya during the Conservation Camp which took place in Tanggamus on April 2, 2017 and symbolically handed over permits / assistance for the Business of Providing Nature Tourism Services for Pakor Makmur Cooperative, Pekon Paku Negara and Pekon Kubu Perahu Community.

In this training, participants shared stories about the development of ecotourism in their respective villages and described their hopes for an ecotourism village with various potentials. Natural tourism potential, such as waterfalls, diversity of rare flora and fauna, such as wild elephants, tarsiers, tor-tor birds, rafflesia arnoldi flowers, amorphopallus sp., volcanic craters, historical tourism, religious tourism, to the existence of beautiful lakes with grouse populations that are still maintained are a series of ecotourism potentials in the area around TNBBS that have not been optimized. Therefore, through this training, it is hoped that ecotourism actors will be able to develop multi-stakeholder integrated program planning or integrated site planning where all parties are involved and the benefits are shared equally (fair).

WWF in this training also invited several entrepreneurs who are engaged in tourism services in Lampung. It is hoped that by encouraging the community to cooperate with the private sector can create a good and fair partnership between the community and the private sector / travel agency so as to trigger the progress of the ecotourism sector in their village that can provide benefits by prioritizing the principle of sustainability.