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| World Heritage Site research in Sumatra |
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| Last Updated: 1st December, 2009 |
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World Heritage Site research in Sumatra
By Janet Cochrane
18th November, 2009
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Disappearing tigers in Sumatra
Janet recently returned from a fortnight's research in the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of
Sumatra
. The site consists of three national parks, all of them huge - in fact it's one of the largest WHS in the world. The visit was part of a research programme looking at cross-cultural perspectives on WHS management in
South East Asia
. The research consisted of observation, interviewing key informants and surveying tourists - and some essential participant observation, consisting of an elephant trek! It was very interesting to see how this was marketed and managed, and the reactions of the other tourists. The biggest problems in the parks are not tourism (which is significant only in one or two small areas) but encroachment for farmland and poaching of species such as tigers, pangolins and orang-utans.
Janet commented that it was quite a shock when the
West Sumatra
earthquake happened, as she had been in the places affected just a short time before. As far as she could ascertain, everyone she met there survived the quake.
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