German Alumni Summer School 2010 "Biodiversity Management and Tourism Development"

Date and Venue: 01-08 December 2010, Mataram, Lombok, Indonesia

Organized by Centre for Nature Conservation(CNC), Göttingen University, South-East Asian Germany Alumni Network (SEAG) and Sub-Network Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use (BIODICS). The Summer School is funded through German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) together with BMZ targeting the scientists and practitioner of German Alumni from Southeast Asia.


Contents:

The German Alumni Summer School encompasses significant contributions from participants from South-East Asia and Central Asia with the main concern on ’biodiversity management and tourism development’. Several key lectures and experts from Germany, USA, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia are invited to the summer school.
Tourist industry is increasing rapidly in the world especially in developing countries as the main source for devise and working place. The continuous growth of tourism will place great stress on remaining biologically diverse habitats and indigenous cultures, which are often used to support mass tourism. Several ecosystem types such as coral reef, small island, coastal area, pristine forest and freshwater ecosystem became the main targets of tourism development, but these are at the same time very valuable habitats for the threatened biodiversity. The establishment of tourism destination including infrastructure, new roads and accommodation will destroy certain areas of forest, mangrove and other valuable ecosystems. Moreover, tourism may demand the big volume of water and produce a huge amount of waste. The enormous extraction of ground water causes desiccation of particular areas, and may lead to biodiversity loss. Inappropriate behaviour and uncontrolled tourist activities including hunting, fishing, false operating of diving equipment, picking and collecting animals and plants, etc. may adversely impact biodiversity and its habitat. Therefore the strategy for development of ecologically sustainable tourism should be discussed and the ways to stop devastation of the last valuable habitats and nevertheless support the local community will be analyzed.
Since there are various stakeholders that are responsible for the kind of tourism they develop or engage in, it is an urgent need to talk and share the knowledge and understanding about biodiversity management and tourism development.

The main subjects of our Summer School will include:
1. Tourism development as the challenge for the future; the growth of
international tourist industry
2. Development of tourist sector in South-East Asia, globalization-tourism
as new imperialism.
3. The impact of tourism on biodiversity.
4. Sustainable tourism and biodiversity management
5. Tourism development and tropical rainforest.
6. Marine biodiversity and tourism development.
7. Integrating sustainable tourism and local communities
8. Ecotourism–Linking tourism and biodiversity conservation
9. Key decision-making regarding tourism and biodiversity conservation; Implementation strategies to travel agencies, tourist industry, education and policy makers.
In addition to the lectures and presentations, there will be adequate time for discussions and exchange during the group works and field trips. Alumni networks and future programs of SEAG-BIODICS will be discussed.

Field Excursion program

Excursion to Gili Matra Marine Natural Recreation will address the following subjects:


  • The consequences of tourism on coral ecosystem
  • Tourism development and local communities
  • The importance of ecotourism and sustainable tourism in coastal areas and small islands
  • Sustainable management and conservation of ocean and coastal marine resources.



Field trip to Mount Rinjani National Park (forest ecosystem), Lombok will emphasize the following subjects:

  • Assessing and predicting the influence of tourism on biodiversity
  • The involvement of local communities in sustainable tourism
  • National Park and nature-based tourism




Target groups

The focus is given on German Alumni from South-East Asia and Central Asia. Experts and advanced students working on the science and management related to biodiversity conservation and tourism development are invited to participate. Institutional affiliations may include research and education, NGO’s, government agencies, local communities and related stakeholders, DAAD representative and GTZ delegate. The selected participants will be given an opportunity to present biodiversity management and tourism related issues based on their capacities.


Registration, costs and support

Each participant has to submit an abstract consisting of 350-500 words and related to the above mentioned themes. The abstract should be sent electronically to one of the members of the organizers below not later than 31th July 2010. Candidates whose abstract has been selected will be notified on 31 th August 2010. The invited participants are requested to submit the full paper following the Instruction for Authors not later than 20th October 2010. The language of the Summer School is English.
This Summer School is being funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD-Deutscher Akademischer Ausstauschdienst) and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Therefore there are no participation fees for invited experts and German Alumni participants. Travel and accommodation of all selected participants will be fully covered by the organizers.