Dive in KOMODO NATIONAL PARK INDONESIAKomodo Diving Liveaboard, Adventure Tours & Sailing Cruises |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
KOMODO NATIONAL PARK World Heritage Site
Lying 200
nautical miles east of Bali, Komodo National Park
nestles between the large islands of S
This unique biosphere was born in the great volcanic uplift that formed Sumatra, Java, Bali and the islands lying eastward to Papua New Guinea. In 1928 the Dutch colonial government of the then Dutch East Indies formalized the nature reserve status originally conferred on Komodo in 1915 by the Raja of Biwa in neighbouring Sumbawa. Indonesia decreed the area a national park in 1980, and in 1992 Komodo was declared a World Heritage Site. Despite these official designations and its obvious interest to the scientific community, Komodo is daily suffering irreparable damage by the hand of man. Almost before the world can properly appreciate the natural beauty of Komodo - home of the Komodo Dragon - its wonders are in danger of disappearing forever. It is disturbing that so little has changed since the declaration of Douglas Burden, leader of the 1926 American expedition to Komodo: "a place where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile"
Location:
Komodo
History:
In
1938 Padar and the south and we
Climate:
Kom
Topography:
Most
Komodo island is 35km long and 15km wide, and is mountainous on a north to south axis, with an average altitude of 500-600m. The highest peak is Satalibo (735m) in the north. Most of the island is lontar palm savannah with remnates of rainforest and bamboo forest at higher elevations. On Rinca the land rises gradually from the north coast to a plateau that ends at Mount Dora (667m) in the south. The rugged south coast is very sheer as a result of volcanic activity in the distant past, as evidenced by the crater bay in which Nusa Kode nestles.
Fauna:
The Park
Komodo
The
Komodo i
|
KOMODO DIVE LIVEABOARDS
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
KOMODO NATIONAL PARK BOUTIQUE DIVE LIVABOARDSHOTELS RESERVATION AND DIVE SAFARIES |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright : www.komodiving.com @2010 Lombok Tropic Holidays Indonesia Provide best diving in Komodo Islands |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
umbawa and Flores,
all of which are part of Indonesia's Lesser Sunda
Islands (Nusa Tenggara on current maps). 
National
Park is located between the islands of Sumbawa and
Flores in the Lesser Sunda Islands, at a distance of 200
nautical miles to the east of Bali. It has a total land
area of 75,000 hectares and encompasses a number of
islands, the largest of which are Komodo (34,000
hectares), Rinca (20,000 hectares), Padar, Nusa Kode,
Motang, numerous smaller islands, and the Wae Wuul
sanctuary on Flores. A total of 112,500 hectares of the
surrounding waters are also under the jurisdiction of
the park rangers.
st of Rinca were declared
a Wildlife Sanctuary, but it was only in 1965 that the
island of Komodo was formally included in the sanctuary.
Komodo National Park was established by government
decree in 1980 followed by the designation of Komodo
National Park as a World Heritage Site in 1991.
odo
National Park has the lowest annual rainfall in all of
Indonesia, with an abbreviated rainy season in the month
of January. For most of the year Komodo is dry and hot,
parched by arid winds from the Australian desert that
blow from April through October. Maximum temperatures
reach 43 C, with minimums of 17 C in August.
of
the Park is dry, rugged and hilly, a combination of
ancient volcanic eruptions and more recent tectonic
uplift of sedimentary seabeds. The irregular coastline
is indented with rocky headlands and sandy bays, many
framed by soaring volcanic cliffs.
encompasses most of the recognized habitat of the
largest known lizard, the world famous Komodo Dragon (Varanus
komodoensis). The Park is also home to Sunda deer (Cervus
timorensis), wild buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), wild boar
((Sus scrofa), the macaque monkey (Macaca fascicularis),
and wild horse (Equus qaballus). All the large mammals
have been introduced by man, but indigenous frogs,
snakes and lizards abound on the island. The sole
endemic species found on Komodo is the aptly named
Komodo rat. Over 150 species of birds have been
identified in Komodo National Park, many of which are
migratory and more representative of Australasian than
Asiatic species. Distinctive species include sulphur-crested
cockatoos, imperial pigeons, white-breasted sea eagles
and maleos. The seas surrounding the park teem with over
1000 species of fish and marine mammals
is
unique in the world in having two distinct marine
habitats - tropical and temperate - a few nautical miles
distant from each other. There is a constant flow of the
warm tropical waters of the Flores Sea to the north
which mix with the cold upwellings brought from the
south by the Indian Ocean. The upwellings are caused by
deep ocean currents originating in Antarctica which
collide with the volcanic shelf of Komodo and surface.
upwellings,
combined with the oxygenation occasioned by the fierce
currents surrounding Komodo, provide an endless supply
of plankton and nutrients to the surrounding seas. This
in turn, supports an amazing and colourful profusion of
temperate marine life - invertebrate, mammal and fish. A
few mile to the north lies an even greater multitude of
tropical fish life that are normally found in equatorial
waters. All in all, there are over 1000 species of fish
and marine mammals found in the waters surrounding
Komodo.
s
unique in the world in having two distinct
marine habitats - tropical and temperate - a few
nautical miles distant from each other. There is
a constant flow of the warm tropical waters of
the Flores Sea to the north which mix with the
cold upwellings brought from the south by the
Indian Ocean. The upwellings are caused by deep
ocean currents originating in Antarctica which
collide with the volcanic shelf of Komodo and
surface. The upwellings, combined with the
oxygenation occasioned
by the fierce currents surroun
ding Komodo,
provide an endless supply of plankton and
nutrients to the surrounding seas. This in turn,
supports an amazing and colourful profusion of
temperate marine life - invertebrate, mammal and
fish. A few mile to the north lies an even
greater multitude of tropical fish life that are
normally found in equatorial waters. All in all,
there are over 1000 species of fish and marine
mammals found in the 
WITHOUT
a Dragon, Komodo and its surrounding islets
would for me still remain a powerful symbol of
that vanishing Garden of Eden deep within our
collective memory . With its strange orchids,
flying lizards, forests of giant fan palms and
scarcity of man, it seems less like another
Place than another Time. So remote is this tiny
island that it wasn't until l911 that Varanus
Komodoensis, its 10-foot long, running swimming,
tree-climbing lizard, was described by science
and revealed to the world as fact rather than
myth.
the edge-seam of the world, in no one continent
and no one sea, the dragon islands of Komodo
National Park are also surrounded by a furious
moat For the Lesser Sunda archipelago, that thin
chain of islands stretching east from Bali
towards New Guinea, is also the grid which
of
tidal races and whirlpools, but also an
astounding mixture of marine creatures of both
warm and cold water, some species having no
business to be anywhere near here at all, others
found no where else, and many more constantly
revealing themselves to be new to science. No
less than fifteen different varieties of whales
and dolphins have recently been observed here,
from pods of shark-eating tropical Orcas, to the
two-foot long, exuberantly acrobatic spinner
dolphins.
lumbed by SCUBA divers - and now, at the
turn of the Millennium, just when we have
started to see how mysteriously rich this region
is, we find it under threat. The burgeoning
population of Indonesia, the hunger for fish and
meat, has brought dynamite and cyanide fisher
bandits to Komodo's reefs, and marauding armed
poachers seeking the wild deer and pig of the
islands, which are the essential life support of
the great lizard. Our last dragon, and its moat
of marine mysteries, should be passed on, don't
you think, to continue to remind future
generations of our earliest beginnings and of
that dwindling Garden of Eden within us all?
