L

ore Lindu National Park (TNLL) in Central Sulawesi is aiming to develop ecotourism facilities in Sigi regency to boost visitor numbers.

Two breeding sites for the maleo bird in Saluki village and Tuwa village in Gumbasa district will be developed for the purpose, head of the TNLL Sudayatna said. They are located on the main Palu-to-Kulawi road some 3.1 kilometers inside the Park’s conservation forest.

“Based on the design and budget plan we need some Rp 9 billion [US$ 675,575],” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday regarding the funding needed to realize the planned development.

The budget, he said, did not include the development of a bridge and the improvement of the road for easier access from the entrance gate to the bird-breeding locations.

The maleo breeding facilities have been there since the 1980s but as more and more foreign tourists have been visiting the sites improvements are needed.

“We’ll improve them by building several supporting facilities in the breeding area,” he said.

Apart from adding more places for the birds to lay and hatch eggs, a number of observation and research huts as well as visitor accommodation will also be developed.

Most of the visitors to the areas are domestic and foreign university students, bird watchers and researchers.

Up to now, Sudayatna said, visitors had to walk or take a motorcycle ride through local people’s cocoa and coffee plantations to get to the breeding sites.

They also have to cross a river and during flooding they have to wait for the floods to subside before continuing their trips.

“That’s why we have to build a bridge for easier access to the locations,” he said.

The maleo, a bird endemic to Sulawesi, is an endangered species and protected by law.

Meanwhile, the national park will also develop Lake Tambing in Poso regency, which has long been a favorite with visitors.

Available data showed that in 2016 21,691 domestic and foreign tourists visited the sites.

Sudayatna said the number of tourists visiting the sites continued to increase significantly year after year despite the large-scale manhunt for notorious terror suspect Santoso, aka Abu Wardah, and his East Indonesia Mujahidin guerillas in the area last year.

Sudayatna said that if the Mount Rorekatimbu hiking trail, as part of the Lake Tambing tourist package, had not been closed due to the manhunt, the tourist visits to the region would have been higher than presently recorded.

Lake Tambing’s attractions include camping grounds, an orchid nursery, fishing pool, bird research and an endemic plant locally known as kantong semar (tropical pitcher plant).

Sudayatna said that some 30 percent of the hundreds of birds in the area were endemic to Lake Tambing.

The head of the Central Sulawesi Tourism Agency, Ardiansyah Lamasitudju, said his office had earmarked Lake Tambing as a main tourist destination in the province.

“Apart from developing marine tourism such as in the Togean Islands, we’ll also develop Lake Tambing as one of our best destinations,” Ardiansyah said.

Lake Tambing, managed by the TNLL, is located in Sedoa subdistrict, North Lore district, some 1,700 meters above sea level.

To get to the site tourists have to travel two-and-a-half hours by motorcycle or car from Palu, the Central Sulawesi provincial capital.