Sustainable management of freshwater swamp forest as an ecotourism destination in Indonesia: a system dynamics modeling

Sjaifuddin Sjaifuddin

doi:10.9770/jesi.2020.8.2(4)

Abstract

As a freshwater swamp forest that still remains in Java, the existence of Rawa Danau as an ecotourism destination is important to be explored, because its utilization is not yet based on sustainable management principles. For this reason, a system dynamics modeling was then made that integrates various factors in the biophysical, social, and economic dimensions to obtain the best alternative for managing the future ecotourism destinations. Management alternatives are designed in three scenarios: deep ecotourism oriented to very strong/strong sustainability; shallow ecotourism oriented to weak sustainability; and mass tourism oriented to very weak sustainability. The results showed that deep ecotourism was the most suitable scenario to be implemented. Through this scenario, the control of several parameters that were successfully carried out during the 10 years of the simulation are as follows: 1) restrain the growth rate of tourist numbers so as not to burden the environment; 2) reforesting almost all forest land converted so that the restoration of forest functions goes well; 3) increase local community income so that the community gets adequate economic benefits; 4) increase environmental investment so that stakeholders benefit economically, ecologically, and socially in an integrated manner; 5) maintaining biodiversity at a high level; 6) maintain swamp water reserves at a very good level; 7) reduce the volume of solid waste so that it does not burden the environment.

Highlights

In the last few decades, tourism has developed into one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the world
The simulation uses 3 scenarios of ecotourism management: 1) deep ecotourism which is oriented towards very strong/strong sustainability, 2) shallow ecotourism oriented to weak sustainability, and 3) mass tourism which is oriented towards very weak sustainability (Acott et al, 1998)
As a tropical lowland swamp forest that still remains in Java, the existence of Rawa Danau as an ecotourism destination is important to be explored, because its utilization has not followed the principles of sustainable management

Summary

Introduction

In the last few decades, tourism has developed into one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the world. The rapid growth of the tourism sector has an impact on increasing the income of countries in the world. In addition to making a major contribution to the sustainability of economic growth, tourism based on industry excellence provides minimal environmental impact (Sjaifuddin, 2018). Especially if the industrial development is not good, usually the tourism sector still has a large contribution to the state revenue (Akis, 2011). In Bali, Indonesia, tourism is even able to contribute around 60-70% to the local economy, creating broad employment opportunities, and attracting investment both locally and internationally (Chong, 2020). In general, tourism is considered to have an important role in improving the quality of life (Garau-Vadell et al, 2018)

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion