Sustainability challenges in developing marine-based adventure tourism in Ambon

There has been growing demands for nature-based tourism involving diverse activities. Marine-based adventure tourism is one of it, which is based on a unique combination of marine biodiversity, scenic beauty, and sea activities such as sea kayaking and diving. The consequences of rapid growth destroy the natural resources because in many cases, any type of tourism industry only focusing on economic development. Sustainable marine-based adventure tourism should balance with many local factors, especially the residents’ socioeconomic activities. The unplanned marine-based adventure tourism development can gradually destroy its natural environmental resources on which it depends, the marine ecosystem. In this paper, the authors describe the possible effects of marine-based-adventure tourism development on natural resources along with solid waste pollution challenges and finally, how the residents are involved in overcoming these sustainability challenges.