Kakadu national park Australia
Introduction
Kakadu is a national park found in the protected area a distance of 171 kilometers southeast Darwin of the northern territory of Australia. The specific location of the park is within famous alligator river regions of Australia in the northern territory. Kakadu national parks cover approximately 19800 square kilometers, stretching to about 200 kilometers from south to north and approximately 100 kilometers from west to east. In relation to Australian cities, Kakadu is a third of Tasmania City, the same size as Wales and approximately half of Switzerland. Kakadu is one of the most visited national parks by tourist in Australia, as the park draws both local and international tourists into the region to have an experience with the Australian natural resources and the serenity of the region. Its profound richness in natural resources and cool environment tops the list of reasons for its preference by many tourists. The park is well known for biological and ecological diversity with the main natural features covered within the park includes Australian major rivers such as Wildman river, east alligator river, south, and west alligator rivers. Within the boundaries of the park also lies the six major landforms, which are flood plains, tidal flats and estuaries, the outliers, the southern basins and hills, the stone country, and the lowlands. National parks are majorly associated with the presence of variety and different species of wild animals, Kakadu hots thousands of wildlife, that include over 70 mammal species, over 300 birds species, roughly 1100 insect species, 120 reptilian species, over 60 freshwater species, and approximately 1700 plant species within the park.
Kakadu national park is rich with varieties of environmental and natural resources. Kakadu national park is known for diversity even in terms of activities taking place within the park, according to it a multifunctional entity. Due to its strategic location on the southern sides of equator make the park an ideal region for agriculture since it an experience to major seasons, that is hot summer and wet winter mostly on the mountainsides of the park.in the lowland areas of the park is full of plenty grasses such as sedges, spear grasses and wildflowers that support pastoralism and rearing of livestock. Following the discovery of the first minerals in the late 1880s within the pine creek area of the Adelaide River opened up the site of exploration for other minerals and since then other minerals were found within the park hence becoming a hotbed for mining operations. Considering the above activities taking place within the park, it is therefore right to states that Kakadu is a multipurpose site that supports agriculture, tourism, and mining in the region.
Kakadu national park is the destination to many environments and nature lovers who flock the park every year to have an experience with the Australian natural environment. Its position in the tropic between 120 and 140 in the southern equator makes the climate within the park more serene monsoonal seasons. These elegant conditions of the park attract three major modes of tourism, local or domestic tourism where Australian natives spare their time and have a walk to the park to have the cool environment, this is mostly encouraged among students who visit the park for learning and understanding the dynamics of natural environment with9in Australia. The research shows that domestic tourism to the park is approximately 45% annually thus a good gesture for promoting local tourism. Another mode of tourism registered the inbound tourism that involves natives of other countries from all over the world visiting the park t have a teste and experience the rich Australian natural resources contained within the boundaries of the park. International tourist contributes to approximately 55% of the total visit to the park in a year.
Despite the very many e4nvironmental and natural features within the park, the trend of tourists visiting the park is determined by the various environmental attitudes and modes. Generally, both international and domestic tourists visiting Kakadu national park tends to be guided or driven by the attitudes that describe their psychological factors that prove environmentally significant behavior. Most of the domestic tourists to the park are driven by the broader systems such ass having religious essence or attachment with any of the environmental feature within the park, some holds it as cultural practice a norm to either visit the park a given number of times within a year of over a specified period of time while others make visits and political concept of relief from other scrupulous political deeds. Another observable attitude of Kakadu national park tourists is of those who were viewed as pro-environmental individuals, these are the lovers of nature and environment naturally. These groups of tourist would transverse the whole word just to satisfy their quest for having experience with different environmental nature. Most of the pro-environmental attitude tourists who visited Kakadu came from without Australian borders, however, there were some few Australian pro-environmentalists, who wwer4ein continuous study and research on Australian topography. Another attitude witnessed is towards endorsing relevant environmental behavior such as avoiding littering or selecting an ecotourism vacation
Through various factors and tourist behavior model, the management of the park as accrued bounties of benefits both in the local and international domain. The pro-environmental tourists who visit the park for the purpose of study always publish sweet articles and research papers about Kakadu national park. Since they originate from different countries, the sweet descriptions about Kakadu spread far and wide attracting more visitors thus continuous visitation of the park by international tourists. For the tourists with the worldview of the park such as those with cultural attachment with any environmental feature would constantly and frequently visit the park thus the continuous generation of revenue and at the same time promotion of Australian heritage. These aspects also relate to those with religious connection with any feature in within the park, however, currently, the Kakadu’s park management has established policies that guide all these operations within the park as one of the measures to combat and reduce the spread the global pandemic, the COVID-19
Tourism is an entity that thrives for sustainability just as other organizational industries, the success of achieving these successes depend on the involvement of all stakeholders of the park’s management. In Kakadu national park, all stakeholders are involved in the development and sustainable plans of the park. For example, senior management has to seek and review the comments of tour guides and tourists in their efforts to provide the best ecotourism services and always value the tourist’s feedbacks and reviews. By listening and incorporating every stakeholder’s opinion on matters Kakadu tourism, there has been sustainable tourism within the park through continuous supply of quality tourism product and services ranging from minimum undesirable actions to desirable maximum actions that directly and indirectly related to the global sustainable goals such us clean environment free from pollution, conservation of water catchment source, etc.
Tourism develops based on biodiversity, however, this seems to be in jeopardy as in the recent past there has been a decline in global biodiversity in that there is much resemblance and this has and will continue to negatively impact tourism sector most so international tourism. The argument being that there is no need to travel to tour nay particular site yet there is everything that is hosted domestically.
In conclusion, the success of tourist destinations like Kakadu national park depends on sustainable practices undertaken and how well the needs of stakeholders are handled, the major stakeholders being natural environment, local natives, and tourists. Therefore it is recommended that Kakadu’s management should embrace the inclusivity of all its stakeholders if sustainability in the Kakadu tourism sector ins a thing to live by. Kakadu is strategically located and is full of natural and environmental riches that require proper management to maximize the output of the tourism activities within the region
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