Financing Strategy of National Park Model : A Study in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, West Java, Indonesia

Sustainable financing for protected areas (PAs) has currently become the sub-ject of debates. Most of PAs including national parks (NPs) were financed by the governments. Nevertheless, current global trends contrast the increasing number of NPs with the limited government budget as well as the decreasing trend of external funds. Realizing such issue, Indonesian government promot-ed NPs to be self-financed through designation of 21 NP models in 2006. This paper aimed to look at the financing mechanism for conservation of NPs in Indonesia, and see the potentials to support for self-financing. A more focus study in GHSNP is also discussed to look at the likely budget shortfall, and the effectiveness and efficiency use of the funds. The study uses a set of secondary data from official sources, and chooses Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) technique as a quantitative approach to reveal the data. The results indicate that by increasing the number of parks, Indonesian government does not necessarily lessen the budget support. However, the proportion of budget allocated for NPs to GDP and to total government expenditure is relatively low. There were budget shortfalls in GHSNP, and it is not allocated in timely manner, which somehow led to ineffective and inefficiency use of the funds. Even so, local initiatives such as commitment to cooperation programs or partnerships, creating a business plan and a clear financing mechanism through an independent and trustworthy institution, seem help to solve the financial burden. Relevance to Development Studies The growing concern of international public on forest conservation has motivated forest rich countries including Indonesia to allocate more resources on this sector. Realizing the increasing challenges in financing conservation programs, many scholars prompt protected area managers to expand and develop a more creative funding mechanism. While most literatures suggest promising tools and policies, this study seeks some realistic options to reach sustainable financing for NPs in Indonesia. This paper is likely to be the first explores financial data of 50 NPs, and provides an in-depth discussion on solving financial gaps in a NP model; GHSNP.