Reservoir to ecotourism and its climate change mitigation type development: Challenges and opportunities in North Sumatra’s Botanic Garden Samosir Areas

Abstract

Abstract Optimizing reservoirs for ecotourism development is one way to increase local or national economics without impairing environmental conditions, alongside as an adapting or mitigating process to climate change, which is part of sustainable development goals, especially in the Aek Natonang’reservoir, where there is also a botanic garden and a conservation zone function. Hence, this research tried to explore, investigate, and analyze the role of reservoirs in ecotourism and their coping with climate change impacts, as well as their hopefully positive welfare impact on the welfare of the local people. The direct observation and in-depth individual interviews with some of the respondents collected data in the field, alongside assessment of environmental aspects or conditions. The result of this research has shown that the reservoir of Aek Natonang areas as a water conservation paradigm that would support the local activities in their daily lives as well as act as an adapting and mitigating process to climate change impacts. Hence, ecotourism development is one way to cope with it, and it is part of the challenges and opportunities in Aek Natonang areas management to ecotourism development in the framework of local or national economic growth based on the reservoir of potential.