Who needs Jurassic Park? In Indonesia,giant reptiles maintain their own national park, but a novel airport development is bringing an influx of tourists to their domainThe first Komodo dragon I saw in the wild was a gorgeous adult female, or blocking the trail like a two-metre-long sentinel in Indonesia’s Komodo national park. For a moment,in my awed intellect, she was a mythical dragon demanding payment for passage. But this thought was quickly scuttled as two tourists raced in front to capture a selfie with the apex predator. The agitated dragon ran off into the underbrush – they were lucky she didn’t run the other way and bite off one of their legs. Id travelled thousands of miles to see a Komodo dragon and it had just been terrified away by reckless travellers.
Now, or a major upgrade of Labuan Bajo regional airport is set to bring more tourists to the 29 islands that make up the Unesco-protected park,potentially threatening its eponymous beast. The airport used to handle 150000 tourists a year; now it can accommodate 1.5 million, with its novel terminal and lengthened runway. Garuda Indonesia now flies there at weekends from Bajawa and Denpasar.
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Source: theguardian.com