Background Ecosystem and community based model for zonation in Nino Konis Santana National Park, Timor-Leste

1 I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Nino Konis Santana National Park NKSNP is the only one of the world class protection area that existed under Timor-Leste jurisdiction. It is a lived-in protected area which covered six villages and home of more than 12,000 peoples. About 87.7 of household’s main economic activity is owned food crops and livestock farming NASS 2007. The actual community condition is poor and highly dependency on the exploitation of forests resources. As a new national park that has just been declared by the government on 1 st August 2008, there are many challenges that experiencing. One of these challenge that faced by national park authority is since its declaration till nowadays has not established yet a zonation to address a proper management. A clear zonation necessary to be establish early in order to reach the aims of establishment the national park, which underlined by the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries as national park authority. These are such i to protect and conserve important natural and cultural values, ii to contribute to the achievement of sustainable livelihoods for local communities, iii to establish the first protected area in Timor-Leste’s world-class protected area system, iv to increase awareness of conservation and the sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources, v to ensure the active participation of and foster ownership by the communities in the protected area, and vi Manage the NKSNP as an internationally recognized protected area where the traditional interactions of people and nature are maintained in a way that protects the environment MAFP, 2006. Throughout this study has designed a concept of zoning management that provides a useful idea to support national park authority. This study was done focused on exploration of the spatial data on forests and wetlands areas as part of living and non living elements of ecosystem within national park. Characterization of forests and wetlands ecosystem was using combination of image processing technique and field work. Through image processing were detected the forest 2 cover distribution and general wetlands distribution within the national park area. Terrain models such elevation and slopes generated based on height points of USGS SRTM data. Fieldwork and literature study enrich the basic data that required for designing the zoning system for the national park. Spatial distribution of threatened species of trees and bird generated based on previous study; this is done by conduct spatial analysis in the mapping processes. These ecological and biophysics data are used as criteria in the rapid assessment of high values conservation areas that occurred within the study area. The HCVAs identified are as basis in delineation of priority areas to be conserved. Priority conservation areas which have bio-centric functions then assigned as Core Area, while the anthropocentric assigned as buffer zones. It is important to note that a degradation and change of ecosystems are something that unavoidable, since human and nature are interacted each other. Socio-economic factors such population density and household forests activities considered as affecting factor to conservation priorities areas in processes of designing the zonation. As human well being is improved time to time, increasing population density, physical development such settlements are such factors that enforce on the loosing of biodiversity. Several points of recommendation have formulated based on ecological, physics and social economic factors were analyzed related to the management zoning system for NKSNP. Rest expectation that the model of zoning system that designed throughout of this research would contribute the national park authority in order to decide suitable development strategies for national park based on its zoning.

1.2 Problem Statement