Bunaken Island and the four other islands of Siladen, Manado Tua, Montehage and Nain are part of a marine park called Bunaken Marine Park. The total area of the park is 89,065 ha and includes parts of the coastal area of North Sulawesi mainland. Some fact include:

• The park is 16,000 sq. km of water and land.

• Water temperature rarely drops below 28 celsius, and averages 29 celsius over the year.

• The dry season is from April to November when the wind blows from south-east and the sea stays relatively calm.

• The wet season is from December to March with cooler winds from north-west which can bring heavier rains and rougher seas.

• Temperatures vary between 25 celsius in the wet season to 30 celsius in the dry season.

• Diving can be undertaken all year round - visibility varies from 30m during the dry season to 15m in the wet season.

• There are 7,000 species of coral fish in the world and over 2,000 can be found in the park.

• Protected fishes that can be found in the area include the coelacanth, turtles, dugongs and giant clams.

• Unusual fish include the pygmy seahorse, the ghost pipefish, frogfish and the blue-ringed octopus.

Tourism Awards

"Bunaken is the best" says British Airways On 2 December 2003, it was announced in London that Bunaken National Park was chosen as the global winner of the 2003 British Airways Tourism for Tommorrow Award - considered by many to be the most prestigious award in EcoTourism. In October, Bunaken was chosen as the winner in the national parks category, and at a celebrity awards ceremony they announced Bunaken as the overall global winner as well. This final selection was based upon presentations to a panel of judges as well as site visits by well-known ecotourism journalists. Find out more from British Airways.

Bunaken National Park Entrance Fee

Wear Your Bunaken Entrance Tag with Pride!
All visitors to the Bunaken National Park (divers and non-divers) have to pay an entrance fee, in accordance with North Sulawesi Provincial Government Provincial Law Number 9/2002.

The entrance fee for foreign visitors are Rp 50,000 per daily ticket (approximately US$6) or Rp 150,000 (approximately US$17) for a waterproof plastic entrance tag valid for the full calendar year.

Tags (or tickets) must be carried at all times the guest is within park boundaries and can easily be affixed to guests' diving or snorkeling gear or on backpacks. Enforcement of the entrance fee system is conducted via spot checks by park rangers on land and at sea.

The entrance fee system has been adapted from the well-known Bonaire Marine Park system and was successful in raising over $250,000 for conservation programs in Bunaken during the period from 2001-2003.

Entrance tags and tickets can be purchased from Two Fish Divers, through the other marine tourism operators based in Manado and in the Bunaken National Park, or can be purchased from one of three ticket counters in Bunaken and Liang villages on Bunaken Island and on Siladen Island.

The proceeds from the sales of the entrance tags are managed by Bunaken National Park Management Advisory Board (BNPMAB), a multistakeholder board that NSWA is a member of.

Where does the money go?

Now that you've arrived in Manado and enjoyed a few breathtaking dives in the Bunaken National Marine Park, you may be tempted to ask: "Just where does my Rp 150,000 entrance fee go anyway"? The answer will probably surprise you, as Bunaken's entrance fee system is the first of its kind in Asia, and is being held up as a model system by marine conservationists around the world. The most important aspect of Bunaken's system is that the money collected remains with the Bunaken Management Advisory Board to fund conservation and village development programs in the park - instead of heading to the national coffers as with every other national park in Asia (and many throughout the world)! This makes a world of difference, as it means your money goes towards managing the very reefs you've come to enjoy. Moreover, the funds are controlled by a multistakeholder management board comprised of the North Sulawesi Watersports Association, villagers from the 30 villages in the park, local tourism, fisheries and environmental government agencies, and the local university's marine sciences department. This setup ensures that the money collected cannot be used by any corrupt officials but rather is directed to the most important programs needed in the park (as agreed by this diverse set of interests).

To date, the Bunaken entrance fee system has been extremely successful; having been inaugurated on 15 March 2001, the system collected US$125,112 from March 2001 through August 2002, including $83,109 in 2002 alone. These fees were collected from 21,908 domestic visitors and 11,174 international visitors from 43 different countries.

So, you ask, where did that money go? Each year, the management board makes a yearly workplan in which it prioritizes the most urgent conservation issues in the park for funding. For the past 2 years, the unanimous top priority has been the development of a joint villager/ranger/police patrol team to stop destructive fishing practices such as blast and cyanide fishing and other illegal activities such as mangrove cutting and capture of endangered wildlife such as turtles and dugongs. The patrol system, while extremely effective, has also been expensive, costing over $85,000 to date (helped out by $33,000 in grants from WWF Wallacea).

The second priority has been village conservation and development programs aimed at garnering the support of the nearly 30,000 villagers in the park. Over $35,000 in the past year has been dedicated to programs in 24 villages, including mangrove replanting, conservation education for children, and construction of public wells, community information boards, docks, toilet facilities, and garbage disposal areas. The entrance fee has also helped fund a village VHF radio network and has even begun working on the plastic trash problem from Manado, though it is clear that solving the trash problem is a government issue that will require significantly larger funding than the entrance fee can provide. For a detailed monthly update on the financial report from the board, please check the website www.bunaken.or.id.

Sounds good, but has this money made a difference? Absolutely, according to villagers, scientists and divers alike! Villagers from throughout the park have heralded the development of the patrol system (and the village radio network) - which has allowed villagers to help stop the blast and cyanide fishing that was threatening not only your diving but also their livelihoods and their children's future! Villager fishers have also reported an increase in fish catches since the bombing and cyaniding have stopped. Scientists studying Bunaken's reefs have documented an 11.3% increase in live coral cover between January 2001 and September 2002 on Bunaken Island alone - almost unheard of in a time when environmentalists around the world are sounding the death knell for many of the world's reefs.

Perhaps most importantly to you, this difference is very noticeable to divers. Mr. K.Y. Lee, a dive tour leader from Singapore who has made 38 trips to Bunaken since 1991, says that for the first time in 10 years he is seeing sharks or turtles on almost every dive - he recently made a single dive with 9 turtle sightings! Both Michael Aw and Mike Severns (professional underwater photographers who produced the stunning books Beneath Bunaken and Sulawesi Seas) have likewise commented on their increasing satisfaction with the number of fish in the park. As Mr. Lee enthusiastically claims, "I never get tired of Bunaken's beauty; every dive here is like the first time." Note that Mr. Lee is putting his money where his mouth is - in the past year he has donated marine VCD's, tshirts, and scholarship funding towards village conservation education programs in the park in a bid to encourage Bunaken's villagers to take care of their resources.

International recognition of Bunaken's success has also been forthcoming from a number of environmental organizations. The International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN) has chosen Bunaken as its single Asian demonstration site for sustainable reef tourism, while the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Southeast Asian Marine group has selected Bunaken as one of four model marine protected areas in the region. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) continues to expand its programs in the park and uses Bunaken as a model for work elsewhere in Indonesia.

Here in Indonesia, the Indonesian Department of Nature Conservation in Jakarta has chosen to make Bunaken one of its "centers of excellence" for training for other parks. Thirteen other national parks from throughout Indonesia (as well as one each from Vietnam, Malaysia and the Phillipines) have visited Bunaken in the past year and a half to study its management system. With luck, the lessons these national parks have learned from Bunaken will help ensure that Southeast Asia's reefs can prosper and be worthy of their title as the global center of marine biodiversity. Happy diving!

Dr. MV Erdmann, September 2002
Marine Protected Areas Advisor, NRM/EPIQ North Sulawesi