Indonesian Fisherman Becomes a Local Environmental Hero

Have you ever thought about how colourful aquarium fish are captured?
A common method is to use cyanide bombs to temporarily stun the fish but not kill them.

However in the process cyanide kills the coral reef doing lasting damage to the ecosystem. But on the small island of Nusa Penida off the coast of Bali, Rebecca Henschke met a local environmental hero who is educating and changing the way fisherman work.

“When I was younger, around twelve years old, I didn’t know anything about the damage of cyanide. We used to just buy cyanide. Go fishing for small tropical fish. At the same time as getting small fish they also died in an entertaining way. They leaped up into the air. As a kid I used to think that was really funny.”

Fisherman, painter and seaweed farmer, I Wayan Ujiana, also used to mine sand to build his house and regularly cut down mangrove trees. But now he sits in a room he has turned into an environmental information centre.

Posters about the islands rich biodiversity and images of sea-life drawn by his students cover the walls.

“Now I don’t think it’s funny at all. It’s was a very wrong way of thinking. Now even if you want to buy cyanide on this island it’s very hard. If I find someone selling it I go straight up to them and ask them what is this for? The next day they are usually not brave enough to sell it.”

He is a local environmental hero who is leading a grass roots movement to have 20,000hectares of the sea around Nusa Penida declared a government-backed Marine Protection area.

“With a protection area, with different zone areas for different activities, there will a legal basis for our work. At the moment we are just trying to educate people but if there is a punishment involved it will make our work easier.” The Marine Protection Area will create a no-fishing area where breeding can take place as well as an area for tourism and sea weed farming.

This month the Marine Protection Area will be dedicated by the government. It’s been a four-year-long process. “Because we think that the area needs to be protected but at the same time we need to ensure that the community can benefit from it.”

Elis Nurhayati from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the international environmental group behind the idea, explains why it’s taken so long.

“We want this vision that conservation can come hand-in-hand with development. Because often it will fail if we come with regulation first. First we want to be aware of the benefits of a marine protection area. Once they buy into the idea then they will respect it without it having to be enforced very severely.”

Making sure that sustainability equals development means creating eco-tourism opportunities. In a wooden canoe, we glide through one-meter wide channels. Either side of us is dense mangrove forest. Below fish breed, birds nest in the trees and lizards hunt in a labyrinth of above ground roots.

We are on a mangrove forest tour.

Wayan says ten years ago these mangroves were cut down to fuel the salt plantations. Now this is a protected area where at least 20 tourists a day visit. And to keep the mangroves clean the local community now holds a clean-up once week. To make sure plastic is not stopping new shoots growing up. But tourism is also bringing great damage to the island.

Coming down to the beach you get a sense of the intense tourism that the island is now dealing with. The hillsides are stacked with bungalows. Out to sea the small harbour is full of boats offering snorkeling and dive trips. In front of me is a huge pontoon with waterslides where tourists are playing and heading off from on speed boats and paragliding.

Wira Sanjaya, the community outreach office with TNC, says the anchor below that pontoon moves and smashes the coral reef below it. There is also no waste treatment on the island; it all goes directly out to sea, Wira tries to explain to tourist operators and the government that things need to urgently change for the industry to survive.

“The people come here to see the beautiful coral reef and the healthy mangroves. And in July to September they come here to see the ocean sun fish we call the Mola-Mola. So many come here and we need to make all these activities sustainable: tourism, fishing, sea weed farming and, most of all, the environment.”

Before we leave the island we return to Wayan’s house - the teacher who used to cyanide bomb fish but is now the island’s leading environmentalist. He has two children now who have very different ideas of entertainment.

“My children are even more passionate than me. They will not even touch coral. I have raised them so they are not like what I was. I think they will replace me in leading the conservation effort. Because every time I plant mangroves or restore coral reefs I invite them even though they are small because I don’t know when I will die and they are the future.”

source : http://www.asiacalling.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1382%3Aindonesian-fisherman-becomes-a-local-environmental-hero&catid=1%3Aindonesia&Itemid=263&lang=en

Hari Bumi (Earth Day) 2010 Nusa Penida

Jambore Lingkungan SMP dan SMA Se-Kecamatan Nusa Penida

“ketika pohon terakhir ditebang, ketika air bersih terakhir tercemari, dan ketika ikan terakhir habis ditangkap, maka disitu kita manusia baru akan sadar bahwa ternyata uang tidak bisa dimakan”.

Hari Bumi (Earth Day) 2010 yang diperingati pada tanggal 22 April, seperti biasanya kembali dimeriahkan oleh berbagai kegiatan terkait pelestarian lingkungan di seluruh dunia. Peringatan ini bukanlah sekedar ajang seremonial belaka, namun menjadi momentum untuk terus-menerus mengingatkan kita semua umat manusia untuk menjaga alam dan lingkungan mengingat hidup kita sangat bergantung dengan alam.

Kecamatan Nusa Penida, Kabupaten Klungkung sebagai satu-satunya kecamatan kepulauan di propinsi Bali, tidak ketinggalan pula ikut merayakan peringatan Hari Bumi untuk menyebarkan pesan-pesan pelestarian lingkungan bagi masyarakat sekitar khususnya di kalangan muda. Upaya pelestarian lingkungan di Nusa Penida sangat relevan dan penting mengingat kecamatan Nusa Penida sebagai pulau-pulau kecil sangat bergantung dengan alam dan rentan terhadap ancaman perubahan iklim.

Peringatan Hari Bumi di Kecamatan Nusa Penida tahun 2010 ini dirayakan dengan mengadakan Jambore Lingkungan untuk pelajar SMP dan SMA se-Kecamatan Nusa Penida. Jambore lingkungan diadakan dari tanggal 22 – 23 April bertempat di pantai Atuh – Desa Penjukutan. Sekitar 150 peserta ikut ambil bagian dalam Jambore Lingkungan ini.
Jambore lingkungan Hari Bumi di Nusa Penida ini merupakan kerjasama antara Kecamatan Nusa Penida dengan berbagai lembaga seperti The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Nusa Penida, Yayasan Kura-Kura, Yayasan Pecinta Taman Nasional (FNPF), dan Bali Hai Cruises. Jambore lingkungan ini juga merupakan bagian dari gerakan Indonesia for Coral Day yang kegiatannya dipusatkan di pulau Serangan-Denpasar.

Berbagai aktivitas, lomba, dan presentasi dilaksanakan dan diberikan selama Jambore Lingkungan berlansung. TNC Nusa Penida yang memiliki fokus kegiatan di pesisir dan laut menyampaikan materi mengenai keanekaragaman hayati pesisir dan laut yang ada di Nusa Penida. Sementara itu Yayasan Pecinta Taman Nasional (FNPF) memberikan materi dasar-dasar konservasi dan pelestarian burung. Yayasan Kura-Kura memfokuskan presentasi mereka pada pelestarian penyu dan pengelolaan sampah. Presentasi ini juga diselingi dengan berbagai permainan, pemutaran film dan quiz.

Aneka lomba seperti malam kreatiivitas seni dengan pesan-pesan lingkungan dilaksanakan sepanjang malam jambore. Anak-anak SMP dan SMA Nusa Penida dengan percaya diri dan kreativitas yang tinggi menampilkan aneka sendratari, nyanyian, drama, dan puisi bernuansa religi. Keluar sebagai juara dalam lomba kreativitas seni ini adalah SMP 3 Nusa Penida. Malam hari juga diisi dengan kegiatan doa bersama dan perenungan.

Setelah melalui uparaca penutupan pada tanggal 23 April sore, para peserta pulang ke rumah masing-masing dengan perasaan gembira, hal ini terlihat dengan banyaknya permintaan untuk mengadakan kegiatan Jambore Lingkungan kembali tahun depan. Namun dari semuanya itu, semoga pesan-pesan konservasi alam yang didapatkan selama perkemahan dapat mereka bagikan kepada semua teman-teman, saudara dan keluarga saat mereka pulang, terlebih lagi dapat mereka amalkan dalam kegiatan mereka sehari-hari.

Salam Lestari

Mola Mola (SUNFISH) In Nusa Penida

MOLA MOLA (SUNFISH) IN NUSA PENIDA

The Mola Mola (sunfish) is Nusa Penida’s underwater icon. Mola Mola is a unique and rare fish that appears between July and September every year at several dive spots in Nusa Penida, a small island off the coast of Bali. With an average length of two meters, rounded tail and long fins, the Mola Mola looks like something out of Jurassic Park. That is why many divers from around the world come to dive at Nusa Penida during the Mola Mola season.
Text and Photos by Marthen Welly, The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

Mola Mola is a deep sea fish found at a depth of about 300 meters that comes to the coral reefs in more shallow water to clean its body of parasites with the help of reef fish such as angelfish and banner fish. The other reason Mola Mola comes to shallow water is to get sunlight –- hence its name — because of being too long in the dark and deep sea. Actually, Mola Mola’s habitat is any tropical sea, but it is only at Nusa Penida that its appearance can be predicted.

The best time for spotting Mola Mola is in August. Several dive spots like Crystal Bay, Blue Corner, Ceningan Wall, Batu Abah and Sental are cleaning stations for Mola Mola in Nusa Penida. Sometimes there are more than one hundred divers and 30 speedboats in any one dive spot at a time to see the Mola Mola. The presence of so many divers and boats naturally will disturb the Mola Mola as well as other marine life.

Furthermore some divers who don’t have an environmental friendly perspective come too close to the Mola Mola while taking pictures, with some even trying to touch and hold the giant fish. Several dive operators say that formerly we could find the Mola Mola at 15-20 meters, but now they are found at about 30 – 40 meters. We need to regulate how Mola Mola is observed say dive operators who care about the Mola Mola as a vital tourist asset.

The other threat to the Mola Mola is rubbish that is thrown into the sea, especially plastic. The Mola Mola will eat the plastic as it looks like jelly fish, which is what it eats. Sometimes they are also caught in fishermen’s nets. If care is not taken this stunning marine creature which is one of the vital assets of the marine tourism industry in Bali will disappear from Nusa Penida’s waters.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Indonesia Marine Program with partners such as the Klungkung District Government, local community groups, dive operators, universities and NGOs, are working in Nusa Penida to establish a marine protected area (MPA), which will protect the Mola Mola’s habitat. The goals of the Nusa Penida’s MPA are to conserve Nusa Penida marine biodiversity, to sustain marine tourism and fisheries.

A code of conduct for marine tourism will be developing included for watching the Mola Mola and the graceful Manta Ray. Talking to fishermen and explaining to them how important the Mola Mola is for their income is ongoing, so that the Mola Mola will still remain in Nusa Penida waters and sustain the livelihood of the local community through sustainable marine tourism. [NOW]

http://www.nowbali.co.id/Features/

BROK Mengikuti Proses Deploy Temperature Logger di Nusa Penida

Sebagai salah satu upaya dalam mendukung pembentukan Kawasan Konservasi Perairan (KKP) di Nusa Penida, di awal Pebruari 2010, Peneliti Marine Conservation BROK, E. Elvan Ampou, M.Sc., melaksanakan temperature logger deployment di Nusa Penida.Deployment dilaksanakan sebagai implementasi kerjasama BROK dengan The Nature Concervancy (TNC).

Anggota tim yang terlibat adalah: Marthen Welly (TNC Project Leader-Nusa Penida), Sanjaya (TNC), Andreas Mulyadi (TNC-Papua), dan Denny Yusuf (Dosen Universitas Udayana).Logger yang telah di-deploy berada di tiga lokasi: Pontoon-Bali Hai (Nusa Lembongan), Crystal Bay dan Toyapakeh (Nusa Penida). Diharapkan dengan dipasangnya temperature logger tersebut dapat lebih menambah database suhu terkait dengan observasi dampak perubahan iklim terhadap ekosistem laut.

Selanjutnya informasi yang diperoleh dapat dimanfaatkan oleh berbagai instansi, termasuk khususnya BROK sesuai dengan Letter of Intent (LoI) yang ditandatangani dengan pihak TNC-CTC di Kupang (Juni 2009).

sumber : http://www.brok.dkp.go.id/index.php?me=detail&id_berita=152

Bali’s Seas: Swimming Heads and Seaweed - By Bex Tyrer

The waves continued to rise towards the sky during what seemed to be an eternity, before crashing down to breaking and rolling towards shore. It seemed improbable that the army of speed boats wouldn’t be crushed and crumpled and tossed away. We piled in, with the dive gear apparently secured as the little speed boat began to bounce across the water. The captain was an expert, driving out to the Penida islands every day during the high season from June to December. He expertly negotiated the little boat towards an invisible break in the reef which created a channel from the six meter waves.

We were searching for Mola mola’s - the world’s heaviest and largest bony fish . Weighing in at a record 2500 kg and with an average width and length of two meters the fish use the currents as a system of public transport to allow them to effortlessly travel around the oceans. Mola mola is latin for ‘millet stone’ depicting the grey round flat shape which the fish embody. Their common names range from ‘sunfish’ (as they enjoy to float to the surface ‘thermally recharging’ in the sun), to ‘moonfish’ (in reference of their moon like shape and colour) to ‘swimming head’ (creating misleading images of monster fish heads swimming around the ocean). Without a true tail fin and with huge dorsal and anal fins which they flap from side to side, they are not the most aquadynamic of fish, which is why they tend to surrender to the currents, floating after their prey of jellyfish. Despite spreading across the oceans, and despite not being as tasty as other endangered marine life such as the severely threatened marlin and sharks, Mola mola sightings are uncommon. Their enormous size and bizarre shape are a huge attraction for recreational divers, and this is one of the reasons why I was bouncing around the back of a speed boat. The sea was a chilly 23 degrees Celcius, the current was strong and the Mola mola’s otherwise entertained. However, it is now officially Mola mola season in Bali and business is booming as divers fight the currents and the cold in search of an encounter.

The Penidas (which consists of three islands called Penida, Lembongan and Ceningan) is a major hotspot for diving, not just because of the ‘swimming heads’, but it also has at least 247 species of coral reefs and 562 species of reef fishes. This incredibly rich diversity is a hint of its proximity to ‘the amazon of the sea’. Extending north from the eastern tip of Bali up to the corner of Malaysia and the Philippines to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor, the ‘Coral Triangle’ covers a total area of 5.7 million square kilometers. Its sheer size and richness endows it as one of the world’s largest and most bio-diverse marine centres.

The headquarters for the The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Coral Triangle Centre is located in Nusa Penida, using the area as a base to run pilot projects, conduct marine studies and coastal community education. TNC reports that the Coral Triangle is home to over 600 reef-building coral species, which represents about 75 percent of all the species known to science. The area provides food to more than 3,000 species of reef fish which in turn has provided sustenance to hundreds of coastal communities for centuries. It serves as a vital spawning ground for economically important fish which then populate the surrounding waters. The archipelago acts as a migratory bottle neck as the strait between the Indian and Pacific Ocean brings together waters from the Lesser Sundas, Banda Sea and Papua marine eco-regions. The vigorous currents pump larvae through the waters circulating nutrient rich waters while providing an interconnecting link between the reefs. This is a clue to why Mola Molas are only a few of the rare large marine life which inhabit Indonesia’s seas.

The wonderfully fertile water provides food for large marine life also including whales dolphins, dugongs, manta rays, sharks and turtles, as they travel to their breeding areas with new species still being identified. For example, a new species of whale known to science, named a pygmy Bryde’s whale, was recently found in Komodo National Park. While, in March 2009, the world’s smallest ever whale shark was rescued in the Philippine province of Sorsogon. According to the WWF, its tiny size of 38 centimeters suggests that it was probably born in Philippine waters, at the apex of the Coral Triangle. Ironically, as new methods including DNA sampling are being developed to discover what lives beneath the seas, the numbers of marine mammals, fish and corals are being depleted at rapidly alarming rates. One potential way to reduce the pressure on the coral reefs and its fish populations is to reduce the fishing industry by finding alternative sources of income for the coastal communities.

During the illusive search for the Mola molas, it would have been far more rewarding to hunt for Eucheuma cottonni: A huge area between the shore and reef was covered in this species of farmed seaweed. The total production in the Nusa Penida sub-district is around 30 tons per 35 day (the period of the harvest) selling at a price of between IDR 2800/kilogram and IDR 5000/kilogram , and with large international markets in China, Japan and Taiwan, this makes it an incredibly profitable industry. Seaweed farming has been well established in Bali since the 1980s but it is only in recent years that the industry has boomed. The lucrative potential of seaweed farming suggested that it could be effective in reducing the pressure of over-saturation of the local fisheries, helping to alleviate overfishing and the subsequent low economic returns. However subsequent research showed the diversification of employment to include women and children in seaweed planting and harvesting rather than a shift in employment away from the fisheries. The benefits for the coral reef are not so clear. The reef acts as a natural protection for the seaweed farms from strong waves, but many times seaweed farms have been set up on top of the coral reefs or adjacent to reefs which can have ecological impacts due to shading of corals. Seaweed farms can also cause changes in patterns of sedimentation and water movement, erosion, depletion of nutrients and alteration of natural habitat prior to planting. Traditionally, the reefs belong to the village, making it difficult for farms to be owned by those from outside. Any disputes would be handled by the village chief. Consequently, many of the seaweed farms are owned by village cooperatives, but the question now is how these cooperatives can be used to protect the coral reefs?

TNC is currently working with the residents of Nusa Penida, Klungkung District Government, NGOs, universities and private sectors to create an effective Marine Protected Area (MPA) with the aim to be effective by June 2010. Complementary to the provision of community education on how to most effectively protect the reef, the MPA will also outline restrictions on fishing and regulations on fishing methods. The aim is that this will help to address imminent threats to coastal and marine ecosystems while supporting the sustainable use of marine resources stressing the importance of conservation. In the past dynamite blasting and trawling were common fishing methods which not only killed fish indiscriminately, with a large by-catch, but are incredibly destructive to the reef. The hope is that healthy fish stocks in a new MPA will replenish surrounding fishing grounds with eggs, larvae, and adult fish, while supporting a recent push for a more environmentally friendly tourism. This is particularly important during a time when tourists are flocking underwater. The challenge is how to use recreational sports such as snorkelling and scuba diving to decrease the pressure on the coral reefs, increasing the economic value of ‘live’ wild fish, keeping marine life in the ocean and out of the hotel buffets. The construction of mooring buoys has already been effective at addressing the problem of diving and snorkelling boats from dropping their anchors on the corals. Solid waste such as plastic bottles are perceived as one of the most serious environmental concerns threatening the Penidas. Coastal clean-ups are one way to start to try and reverse the damage of discarded rubbish but there is also a real need for a more sustainable and eco-logically friendly tourism.

Effective management of coastal resources and properly planned coastal development is absolutely essential to ensure that the coastal communities can remain reasonably intact and the coral reefs as resilient and healthy as possible. The importance of coral reefs in the global eco-system is often understated. “Out of sight – out of mind”; for those who don’t scuba dive, or live next to a reef, it is easier to view the reefs as a resource rather than protectors of the shores, nursery and feeding ground for fish and a vital part of the habitat for large and increasingly rare marine life, including Bali’s underwater star - the Mola mola.Many thanks to the scientists and conservationists at The Nature Conservancy for their assistance.

For more information on TNC and their continued work to protect Bali’s seas visit
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/asiapacific/indonesia/ and http://www.coraltrianglecenter.org/Be Active! TNC’s 10 easy things you can do to protect Bali’s Seas: http://www.nature.org/joinanddonate/rescuereef/explore/help.html

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