Enter the Dragon, Ministry Urges Indonesians

The Jakarta Globe, Nurfika Osman, March 3, 2009

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism is enlisting an army of musicians, ministries and local officials for a campaign to get the Komodo National Park placed on a list of seven “New Wonders” of nature.

The Switzerland-based New7Wonders Foundation has launched an online voting contest to name seven of the world’s top forests, national parks or nature preserves.

Sapta Nirwandar, the ministry’s marketing director, said on Monday that officials need to prod Indonesians into voting for its dragon park to ensure it makes the cut.

Sapta said that the ministry would employ the talents of the World Peace Orchestra, which is conducted by one of the country’s most famous musicians, Dwiki Dharmawan.

“Through the WPO, Dwiki and local and international musicians will promote ‘Vote for Komodo National Park for the New 7 Wonders’ on May 21,” he said. “But the WPO will also promote Komodo at the Javajazz festival this weekend.”

In this year’s competition, more than 260 national and multinational nominees were divided into seven groups, which are now competing for 77 slots that will be judged on July 7. The Komodo National Park on Monday stood at 13th place in its group.

“By the end of July 7, the Komodo National Park must stand at 11th place in order to pass to the third stage,” he said.

The third stage of the competition would narrow the field to 21 wonders of the world by December. Only the top three wonders of each group would make it to the next round. In the end, only one wonder in seven final groups would be declared as part of the new seven wonders of the world.

In its current group, Komodo is up against 56 national parks, such as the Subterranean River National Park in Puerta Princessa in the Philippines, the Amazon in Brazil, Eua National Park in Tonga, the Black Forest in Germany, and the Dinosaur Provincial Park of Canada.

Sapta said people can vote for the Komodo on the New7Wonders or on www.indonesia.travel.com.

“We also have communicated this campaign to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and they are ready to help us,” Sapta said.

Separately, ministry spokesman Gatot Dewa Broto said that they were currently printing information about the Komodo National Park to distribute to schools, travel agencies, and restaurants across the country.

“But we have not had any request from [the Ministry of Culture and Tourism] to build more infrastructure in remote areas so that those people are able to vote online,” Gatot said.

In the 2007 contest to name man-made wonders, the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Yogyakarta was passed over due to a lack of votes. Sapta said he did not want to miss out again.

“Borobudur is not listed as one of the seven wonders as we did not know that we had to do to vote for it,” he said.

Komodo National Park is in East Nusa Tenggara.

Photo: The giant komodo dragon is the chief attraction of Komodo National Park. (JG)

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