Krakatau Mountain is located in Sunda strait between Java Island and Sumatra Island of Indonesia. It is a volcanic Mountain and has attracted people around the globe. The American Nature Magazine in 1946 wrote that when people in the world awed by the mighty blast of Atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. However, there was an explosion that was incomparably greater.

Krakatau Mountain blew up, on August 27, 1883, the whole world knew about it. The noise was head around 3,000 miles away; and the great waves of the explosion caused in the area reached the shores of four continents and were recorded 8,000 miles away. In addition, an air wave generated by the explosion traveled clear around the world, not only once but several times.

The Magazine also noted that the red-hot debris covered an area larger than France, to a depth of sometimes 100 feet on land. For nearly the year afterward the dust of the blast, blown upward for 30 miles, filled the high atmosphere over almost the whole globe. Even though there were no large towns within 100 miles of the volcano, approximately 36,000 people lost their lives.

The Magazine also wrote that the mighty explosion awed the sailors of the British Ship Charles Bal, who saw the Island shoot up over the horizon, “shaped like a pine tree brilliantly illuminated by electric flashes”. The sea was covered with innumerable fish, floating belly-up on the churning water. Long afterward came the noise- the loudest ever heard by human ears. “The concussions were deafening” wrote Lloyd’s agent in Batavia – the old name of Jakarta during Dutch colonial era.

In 1928, deep down under its rocky foundation a pocket of lava was seeing outlet for its energies. It broke the surface and showed its top, a flat ugly Island. Indigenous people called this new volcano “Anak Krakatau” or “Child of Krakatau”. Now many tourists from over the world could visit this Mountain Child from Jakarta the capital city of Indonesia. From Jakarta people could take ferry to Bandar Lampung of Sumatra Island, and take a boat to the Mountain.

By Ahmad Cholis Hamzah, alumni of University of London and Airlangga University Surabaya. Now is a lecturer of PERBANAS (Banking College) in Surabaya.

The two cities beat 24 other cities in the ministry’s Langit Biru (Blue Sky) program, which rated cities’ air quality based on four main considerations.

“The four main parameters were traffic management, the quality of fuel, the result of vehicle emission examination and the air quality on the main roads of each city,” deputy minister for environment pollution control MR Karliansyah said, as quoted by kompas.com.

Other additional parameters, she said, were the efforts of local administrations to reduce emissions and the urban planning of respective cities.

The ministry divided the 26 cities into the two categories of “metropolitan” and “big city”, each consisting of 14 and 12 cities, respectively.

Surabaya, scoring a cumulative index point of 7.21, was chosen as the city with the best air quality in the metropolitan category, followed by Medan, North Sumatra, in second and East Jakarta in third.

The big city category saw Surakarta coming out on top with a score of 8.42, beating second place Batam, Riau Islands, and third place Malang, East Java.

In the overall standings, the top three cities with the best air quality were Surakarta, Batam and Malang, while the bottom three spots were occupied by Semarang, Bekasi and West Jakarta.

Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya said that the program was considered a free promotion for cities and was hoped to push local administrations, companies and the general public to care for the air in their respective cities. (awd)

“UI was the only Indonesian university in the top 30 green universities around the globe,” the university said in a press statement as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday.

Universities from 42 countries participated in the “UI Greenmetric of World Universities 2011”, a global research project aimed at promoting environmental awareness.

The greenest campus on Earth was the University of Nottingham, Britain, according to the survey, followed by Northwestern University and the University of Connecticut, both in the US.

UI rector Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri said that the research project had been used as a benchmark by many universities around the globe to improve the quality of their environments.

?(The Jakarta Post)

It is also an appropriate event to assess the involvement of developing countries like Indonesia, and particularly to understand whether their involvement in this UN climate conference will significantly contribute to a successful outcome.

Durban, hosting the 17th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will certainly pick up from where last year’s UN climate change negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, and the subsequent inter-sessional meetings left off.

But now the central challenge is to see whether governments involved in Durban will build on the progress achieved in Cancún or withdraw from this promising path and allow short-term national interests to shroud the negotiations. The Cancún Agreements form the basis of the largest collective effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to date, with national plans formulated under the banner of the UNFCCC, thus helping ensure accountability.

The package encompasses finance (with the Green Climate Fund and fast-start financing), the Cancún Adaptation Framework, a Technology Mechanism (to support action on mitigation and adaptation, and facilitate low-emission economies) and a formal incorporation of REDD+ (stating clearly that the framework to address deforestation is not only about reducing emissions but also halting and reversing forest loss). It is critical that governments involved in the negotiations, especially Indonesia, lock in the progress of the Cancún Agreements and push for their implementation.

Indonesia, as a resource-rich country striving to develop its economy, alleviate poverty and deal with climate change, has a lot at stake through its involvement in these climate change negotiations. For instance, it is critical to Jakarta that further implementation of the Cancún Adaptation Framework is negotiated. Ensuring the establishment of the Adaptation Committee is the first step toward this. The committee’s establishment will send a strong signal to vulnerable countries affected by climate change, including Indonesia, that governments around the world are serious about helping these countries confront the impacts of climate change.

Indonesia also needs to work hard with other parties to negotiate the realisation of fast-start finance and the Green Climate Fund. The former incorporates pledges made by developed countries to mobilise new and additional resources, amounting to US$30 billion for the period 2010–2012, to help mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. The Green Climate Fund will support projects, programs, policies and other activities in developing countries, using thematic funding windows. But with a number of developed countries facing short-term financial challenges, negotiations on finance are likely to be difficult. Specific to the Green Climate Fund, Indonesia must work together with other tropical-forest nations and like-minded countries to lobby for a special window for REDD+ under this fund.

Tropical-forest nations such as Indonesia have already piloted REDD+. The Indonesian government has produced several policies and strategies to guide its development and implementation, including the introduction of a moratorium on new permits to convert forests and peatlands to other land uses. But this may not be sufficient. Tackling deforestation involves different actors, sectors and layers of governments. These entities are known to have competing interests over land use. Without the provision of clear incentives, it is a Herculean task to persuade these actors to change the patterns of land use in Indonesia. A special window of funding for REDD+ at a global level would certainly provide more than a moral boost for tropical-forest nations to advance their REDD+ development at a national level and on the ground.

Adding to already tough negotiations on finance, Indonesia and other developing countries must also remind parties at the Durban conference about the importance of identifying sources of long-term finance, which are needed to cut GHG emissions and support the adaptation efforts of vulnerable countries. Climate change is going to be a long-term phenomenon and countries like Indonesia will suffer if mitigation and adaptation efforts are formulated only with a short time frame in mind.

And with the need for long-term commitment and action on climate change, Durban is crucial to producing an agreement — or at least a convincing direction — toward a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. This is especially urgent as the Protocol’s first commitment period — which regulates developed countries’ commitment to cutting their GHG emissions — will end in 2012. The agreement on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol will also help persuade big emerging economies and other countries to set out a clear mandate for a comprehensive and legally binding agreement.

In Durban, the climate talks are at a crossroads. Governments, including that of Indonesia, and other parties have a long road ahead if they are to demonstrate their seriousness about addressing dangerous climate change. The costs of climate change — socially, environmentally and economically — are high. A delay to act will prove ruinous. Indonesia’s delegation has no choice but to commit to continuous hard work and provide real leadership to guarantee a successful outcome in Durban’s climate negotiations.

Fitrian Ardiansyah is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University and the recipient of the Australian Leadership Award and Allison Sudradjat Award.

“If you get in there [the Mekongga mountain range], there is no guarantee you can get out,” said John A. Trochet, a field ornithologist at the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology at the University of California, Davis. “That’s the truth.”

Since 2009, scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the Ministry of Forestry and the Bandung Institute of Technology have collaborated with American scientists from the University of California’s Davis, Berkeley and San Francisco campuses to survey one of the world’s most biodiverse areas.

Their destination, however, is not an easy one to reach.

“We have to cross a river six times and then it’s a very steep climb to the remnants of an old logging road,” said Trochet, who has broken a finger and hurt his ankles on past treks.

“We follow the logging road, and in many places it’s a wall on one side and a vertical drop on the other,” he said. “In many, many places the logging road has washed away over the years. It’s just very difficult.”

Sometimes more than 80 porters must assist the scientists with their equipment and all of the samples they collect as they head up and down mountains.

“The reason this project is so big is because we are doing everything from plants to birds to microbes,” said Alan T. Hitch, assistant curator at the same institution at UC Davis. “These expeditions in modern times don’t really exist anymore.”

A wealth of new species

It has been about 80 years since the last extensive survey of the area was conducted.

“There are so many insects that are undescribed and so many undescribed microbes,” said Rosichon Ubaidillah, head entomologist at LIPI.

Despite difficult conditions and weeks of Indomie on the menu, the scientists smile with excitement as they describe expeditions that may be among the last of their kind.

Several trips have yielded samples from different elevation classes, many of which still need to be identified.

“Potentially on the vertebrae side, we have at least a few new species of frogs, definitely a new species of bat, probably a couple new species of shrews, and maybe a new subspecies of rodent,” Hitch said.

More than 1,500 vertebrae specimens have been collected, he said, and fish and lizard discoveries may also be classified as new species.

On the plant side of the expedition, 109 species have been collected including a new orchid and a new begonia species.

“This is a new record for us, said Elizabeth Widjaja, a member of the botany division at LIPI, who has potentially found a new genus of bamboo. “For scientific purposes it is very important.”

In addition to the discovery of the Garuda wasp, named after the national symbol of Indonesia, there have been new discoveries of a bright blue sawfly, a long-tongued bee, and numerous flies and tiny wasps, which scientists are currently in the process of describing.

“We estimate that there might be as many as 100,000 different insect species in the region we’re working in, perhaps half of which are new to science, waiting to be discovered and described,” Lynn S. Kimsey, an entomology professor and the director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis, wrote in an e-mail to the Jakarta Globe.

Indonesia’s national collection has gained three species of birds from the expeditions. And that’s only the beginning.

“Out of 80-odd different species of yeasts that we’ve isolated, 37 of them are new to science,” said Kyria Boundy-Mills, a curator at the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection at UC Davis.

Cures in the making

Although studies are still in their infant stages, scientists are excited about their potential yields.

“We are finding potential activity in the plants and microbes that we are collecting in Mekongga — things that have potential for anti-cancer activity, potential effects on the nervous system, they might be new pain relievers or things for treating addictions,” Boundy-Mill said. “We are finding some very good candidates.”

But the scientists worry about protecting the watershed area, as well as the plants and animals of Sulawesi, which, as Trochet put it, “are to a tremendous degree found nowhere else.”

“This area has been logged. It is definitely not pristine rain forest,” Hitch said.

Logging officially stopped in the early 1990s and the area became protected forest, but illegal logging still occurs.

“We have to ask the local people not to go to the forest and do logging again,” Elizabeth said.

Rosichon added that establishing profitable industries in cocoa and coconut plantations could help the region turn away from illegal logging.

“For the people there, it’s easy to just go to the forest and take something from there. We would like to develop an effective biodiversity conservation strategy,” Rosichon said.

Mining interests in the area are also raising concerns.

“Local mining is already open,” Elizabeth said. “Not in the area we visited, but after that on the way to Lasusua. It belongs to Antam [mining company].”

A rise in mining activity could threaten Sulawesi’s biosphere.

“We worry about that [mining],” Rosichon said, adding that the government recently released new regulations to stop the mining in 2015.

“The mining is getting crazy … They are trying to get more and more raw material before they have to stop.”

Despite threats to the region, Rosichon remains optimistic, and the team hopes to approach the government in Jakarta with a proposal to create a larger protective area.

“Hopefully the research from this project will contribute significantly to the broad range of issues, not only for the knowledge of biodiversity in the area, but for conservation and sustainable use of the resources in Sulawesi, and also for the whole country,” Rosichon said.

Grant funding for the project from the US National Institutes of Health will end in 2013.

The scientists are hoping to expand the scope of their research past 2013 with additional grant funding.

“Why should Mekongga be special? The prospect of other areas having similar riches is extremely high,” Trochet said.

In Bosnia, six years ago in 2005, a hill named Visocica gained fame. An archaeology enthusiast and businessman, Semir Osmanagic, found unusual appearance on the shape of the 213-meter high hill in April 2005. A series of excavations were carried out to further answer the assumption. He claimed that a number of covert rock incriptions were spotted. Final excavation brought to light that the pyramid located in the hill was larger that the Giza.

Archaeologists were against the finding. However, Osmanagic was not hesitant. “They’re just jealous,” he told LiveScience. “They have taught students that the ancient Bosnians were cavemen. And out of a sudden, a complex man-made structure is found.”

Is the finding in Garut inspired by the similar discovery in Bosnia? Member of Ancient Catastrophic Disaster Team, Iwan Sumule, said no to the posit. “The Garut pyramid was found by chance as the team looked into faults and the annals of past earthquakes,” he told VIVAnews.

Iwan said earthquakes are considered recurring events with periodic time, including volcanoes. “It is believed that the extinct human civilization was due to past disasters like earthquakes and volcano eruptions.” With regard to the Garut pyramid, various scientific assessments over the finding, including carbon dating, show that the structure is man-made. Earlier, Directorate General of History and Archaeology said Indonesia may have pyramids.

Source: vivanews

The presidential tree planting ceremony was the signal for the simultaneous execution of the same activity by at least 8,820 people including servicemen and police officers, boy and girl scouts, and students.

Indonesia has set a target of planting one billion trees under a program called “One Billion Indonesian Trees for The World” (OBIT ) being implemented to help reduce greenhouse gases.

The OBIT program is Indonesia`s concrete contribution to the world to deal with the impacts of climate change and global warming.

Globally, more than 12 billion trees have now been planted in 193 countries under the Billion Tree Campaign, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Inspired by the work of the late Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, UNEP had initiated a world-wide Billion Tree Campaign aimed to improve the quality of life in communities across the world through the multiple benefits provided by trees.

These include tackling climate change through the sequestration of carbon, contributing to local economies through products such as timber and providing valuable ecosystem services such as soil regulation, erosion control and cultural values.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan is optimistic that Indonesia will be able to surpass the target on January 31, 2012, as during 2011 a total of 827 million trees were planted.

“Until now, we have accomplished 80 percent of the tree planting program. I am optimistic the target will be achieved in late December and it will even be exceeded in 2012,” the minister said in his remarks at the nation-wide tree planting ceremony at Merah Putih Hill, Sentul.

On the occasion, Yudhoyono planted a Manglid (Manglietia glauca) tree, First Lady Ani Yudhoyono a (Gnetum gnemon) tree, Vice President Boediono a Suren (Toona sureni) tree, and his spouse, Herawati Boediono, a Salam (Syzygium polyanthum) tree.

After the tree planting, the president presented awards to provincial governors and districts head who had won a one billion tree planting contest in 2010, and a greening and “Wana Lestari” nature conservation competition in 2011.

The country managed to plant 104 million trees of the 100 million target in 2008, and 250 million trees of the 230 million target in 2009.

Last year, the total tree planting realization jumped to 1.7 billion trees from the target of one billion since the program was launched in 2007.

The Forestry Ministry has allocated funds amounting to Rp3 trillion to support the program of planting more than 1.7 billion trees across the country this year.

At present the country has a stock of 1.7 billion seeds of which 600 million are kept by the forestry ministry, 500 million by state forestry companies and 600 million by timber estate companies.

The planting of one billion trees was started on February 1, 2011 and would be completed on January 31, 2012, according to Minister Zulkifli.

A number of private forestry companies have also supported the program.

President Commissioner of PT. Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) Tony Wenas, for instance, said his company fully supported the Indonesian Tree Planting Day (HMPI) and the National Tree Planting Month 2011.

Tony said his company had three satellite nurseries in Kerinci, Pelalawan, and Baserah, in Sumatra, with a production capacity of 200 million seedlings annually. RAPP was planting around 160 million trees annually, he said.

Earlier, the forestry minister said activities under the national tree planting movement had been carried out in 23 provinces this year to help deal with forest degradation in the country.

The tree planting movement would be intensified in every district by 2013, the minister said recently.

“Thank God, public awareness about the need to plant trees has grown. A number of regions have tree planting programs. Hopefully, the movement will reach the district level by 2013,” the minister said when visiting a One Million Seedling Garden belonging to Budiasi Foundation at Sentul, Bogor.

The tree planting movement is carried out with the support of the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) especially in conservation forest areas, in order to prevent illegal logging activities.

The involvement of servicemen in the tree planting program was crucial to help protect the trees from irresponsible people who came to uproot trees, the forestry ministry`s Natural Conservation and Forest Protection Director General Darori said in Jakarta Monday.

He explained that if there were 350 trees having an average diameter of 36 centimeters on a one-hectare area, the area will have a carbon sink capacity of up to 147.84 tons per hectare.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when observing Indonesia`s Tree Planting Day and National Tree Planting Month in West Java, on Dec. 8, 2009, asked the nation to plant 4 billion trees by 2020 and 9.2 billion trees by 2050.

“If we can achieve half of the target, the trees can absorb 46 billion carbon by 2050. The figure is indeed pessimistic, but if we could plant more trees, much more CO2 could be captured, and this will become our contribution to the world,” the president said.

At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, in September 2009, Yudhoyono pledged to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020 using the state budget and by 41 percent if developed nations gave the financial support to do so.

Earlier this year, the head of state signed a Presidential Instruction on a deforestation moratorium to help curb the impact of climate change and preserve the remaining tropical forests and biodiversity in it.

(F001/A014)

Researchers first announced the discovery of the hobbits in 2004, and the remains have engendered intense interest and controversy ever since. The hobbits lived on the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago, alongside giant rats, diminutive elephant relatives called stegodonts and fearsome Komodo dragons. The new work, carried out by Henneke Meijer of the Smithsonian Institution and her colleagues at the Smithsonian and the National Research and Development Center for Archaeology in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows that a great many birds also called the island home back when the hobbits reigned, as recently as 17,000 years ago. Meijer presented the results on November 4 at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Meijer looked at hundreds of bird bones unearthed from the cave, called Liang Bua. Among the remains were an abundance of swiftlets and songbirds, which may have been hunted by barn owls found at the site. She also identified some water birds that indicate that swamps, mud plains and lakes existed near the cave. Today a river called the Wae Racang lies some 200 meters away and 30 meters below Liang Bua, but the presence of these aquatic birds at the site adds to a growing body of evidence that the river once flowed closer to the cave. The bones of these birds exhibit marks inflicted by raptors, which may have carried their quarry into the cave to get away from competitors. “The number of species we have for birds at Liang Bua is much higher than that of any other group,” Meijer remarks. She says this high diversity of birds is indicative of an ecologically rich environment that would have been good for humans.

Perhaps the most intriguing discoveries among the bird bones from the cave are the remains of a vulture and a giant marabou stork that died there more than 25,000 years ago. The vulture closely resembles the white-headed vulture that lives in Africa today; the stork, a giant relative of the modern marabou stork, would have stood nearly two meters tall, towering over the hobbits, who were only around one meter tall. Because modern marabou storks and vultures primarily scavenge instead of hunt, Meijer surmises that the Flores stork and vulture obtained food this way, too. But what were they doing in the cave? “The only reason why the stork and vulture would be in Liang Bua is because they were drawn to carcasses,” Meijer asserts. She suspects that carcasses of the baby stegodonts that the hobbits hunted and brought back to the cave attracted the birds.

Meijer notes that in Africa, Marabou storks and vultures work together when it comes to scavenging large herbivores. The vultures depend on the storks to signal that the dangerous predators (lions, hyenas and the like) are gone and the storks, in turn, rely on the vultures to open up the carcasses with their sharp talons and beaks (see video below). On Flores, the scene might have played out somewhat differently. Flores did not have any large predatory mammals like the ones found in Africa today—possibly as a result of a phenomenon known as island dwarfing in which mammals larger than rabbits tend to evolve small body size as an adaptation to the limited resources available on small islands. But it did have Komodo dragons and hobbits equipped with stone tools. It’s entirely possible, Meijer says, that dragons, hobbits, storks and vultures were competing for Stegodon parts, although this remains a speculative scenario. (Likewise it is theoretically possible that the giant stork fed on hobbits, but evidence of such an encounter has yet to surface.) Going forward, Meijer plans to test the hypothesis that scavenging birds were drawn to carcasses in the cave by looking for more of these birds among the Liang Bua bones.

source : blogs.scientificamerican.com

Coba deh kita sedikit mempelajari pentingnya air buat kehidupan kita. Kalo kita jalan-jalan ke negara tetangga nih, kita bakal tahu kalau air itu diirit-irit banget, sampe-sampe toiletnya saja tidak memakai semprotan air, cuma tisu! Belum lagi mereka menadah air hujan agar bisa dipakai untuk menyiram tanaman, mennyiram toilet, dan keperluan lain di luar sumber air minum.

Berdasarkan ilustrasi diatas, maka kita harusnya mensyukuri bahwa Indonesia diberkahi curah hujan yang cukup tinggi, terlepas dari perubahan iklim global yang kadang-kadang membuat kita bingung kapan hujan kapan panas, *gila!

Sumber daya air harus dikelola secara secara terpadu, utuh dan berkelanjutan agar kelestariannya tetap terjaga. Namun demikian untuk mewujudkan hal tersebut juga ada permasalahan dan tantangan seperti stres air. Nah lho, bukan cuma kita aja kan yang bisa stres? Konsep stres air menurut World Business Council for Sustainable Development adalah situasi di mana tidak cukup air untuk semua kebutuhan, baik itu untuk pertanian, industri, atau yang lainnya. Permintaan air telah melebihi suplai di beberapa bagian di dunia seiring dengan populasi dunia terus meningkat, yang mengakibatkan peningkatan permintaan terhadap air bersih. Perhatian terhadap kepentingan global dalam mempertahankan air untuk pelayanan ekosistem telah bermunculan, terutama sejak dunia telah kehilangan lebih dari setengah lahan basah bersama dengan nilai pelayanan ekosistemnya. Ekosistem air tawar yang tinggi biodiversitasnya saat ini terus berkurang lebih cepat dibandingkan dengan ekosistem laut ataupun darat.

Pada dasarnya, pembangunan bidang sumber daya air dilakukan sebagai sebuah upaya untuk memberikan akses terhadap air kepada seluruh masyarakat secara adil. Selain itu, pengendalian daya rusak air juga merupakan tujuan pembangunan bidang sumber daya air agar kehidupan masyarakat yang aman dan sejahtera dapat tercipta. Hal tersebut sesuai dalam Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945, pasal 33 ayat (3) yang menyebutkan “Bumi dan air dan kekayaan alam yang terkandung di dalamnya dikuasai oleh Negara dan dipergunakan untuk sebesar-besar kemakmuran rakyat”.

Sebagai payung hukum pelaksanaan pembangunan di bidang sumber daya air, telah diterbitkan Undang-Undang No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air sebagai pengganti Undang-Undang No. 11 Tahun 1974 tentang Pengairan yang telah mencerminkan perwujudan pelaksanaan reformasi kebijakan di bidang sumber daya air. Melalui perubahan tersebut diharapkan peraturan perundangan terkait dengan sumber daya air dapat sejalan dengan tuntutan perkembangan keadaan sumber daya air dan perubahan dalam kehidupan masyarakat saat ini. Tidak seperti Undang-Undang No. 11 Tahun 1974 yang lebih condong ke aspek pendayagunaan sumber daya air, Undang-Undang No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air telah mengatur beberapa aspek pokok pengelolaan sumber daya air seperti konservasi sumber daya air, pendayagunaan sumber daya air, pengendalian daya rusak air dan sistem informasi sumber daya air. Konservasi sumber daya air ditujukan untuk menjaga keberadaan daya dukung, daya tampung, dan fungsi sumber daya air sedangkan pendayagunaan sumber daya air ditujukan untuk memanfaatkan sumber daya air secara berkelanjutan dengan mengutamakan pemenuhan kebutuhan pokok kehidupan masyarakat secara adil.

Selain itu pengendalian daya rusak air ditujukan untuk melindungi keamanan masyarakat dari dampak bahaya bencana banjir sementara pengelolaan sistem informasi sumber daya air dilakukan untuk mendukung pengelolaan sumber daya air itu sendiri.

Selain itu juga telah diterbitkan empat Peraturan Pemerintah (PP) dari sepuluh PP turunan UU No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air sebagai dasar hukum/pedoman yang lebih teknis/rinci dalam pelaksanaan pengelolaan sumber daya air, yaitu; (i) PP No. 16 Tahun 2005 tentang Pengembangan Sistem Penyediaan Air Minum; (ii) PP No. 20 Tahun 2006 tentang Irigasi; (iii) PP No. 42 Tahun 2008 tentang Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air; (iv) PP No. 43 Tahun 2008 tentang Air Tanah; dan (v) PP No. 37 Tahun 2010 tentang Bendungan. Beberapa peraturan perundangan yang telah disahkan sebagai pedoman operasional dalam pelaksanaan koordinasi/pengelolaan sumber daya air, yaitu: (i) Perpres No. 12 Tahun 2008 tentang Dewan Sumber Daya Air; (ii) Keppres No. 6 Tahun 2009 tentang Pembentukan Dewan Sumber Daya Air; (iii) Perpres No. 33 Tahun 2011 tentang Kebijakan Nasional Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air; dan (iv) Kepmen PU No. 390/KPTS/M/2007 tentang Penentuan Status Daerah Irigasi serta 4 (empat) Permen PU lainnya.

Dengan diterbitkannya Undang-Undang No. 17 Tahun 2003 tentang Keuangan Negara dan Undang-Undang No. 25 Tahun 2004 tentang Sistem Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional (SPPN), sistem perencanaan pembangunan dan pengelolaan anggaran negara juga ikut mengalami perubahan. Namun demikian, dalam pelaksanaan pembangunan nasional, perencanaan menjadi sangat penting untuk saling berkaitan dengan penganggaran karena harus disusun dengan memperhatikan ketersediaan sumber daya yang terbatas. Dengan demikian anggaran yang dimanfaatkan dapat dipertanggungjawabkan sesuai dengan skala prioritas pembangunan, kebijakan, program, dan kegiatan dalam rangka peningkatan pelayanan kepada masyarakat.

Pada tahun 2010 pemerintah menerbitkan Peraturan Presiden No. 5 Tahun 2010 tentang Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional (RPJMN) Tahun 2010 – 2014 dengan salah satu kebijakan pembangunan yang ditempuh adalah pembangunan infrastruktur nasional yang memiliki daya dukung dan daya gerak terhadap pertumbuhan ekonomi dan sosial yang berkeadilan dan mengutamakan kepentingan masyarakat umum di seluruh bagian negara kepulauan Republik Indonesia dengan mendorong partisipasi masyarakat. Di bidang sumber daya air, salah satu yang menjadi kebijakan adalah pengendalian dan pengurangan dampak banjir dan tanah longsor secara struktural dan non struktural, terutama pada wilayah berpenduduk padat, wilayah strategis dan pusat-pusat perekonomian. Kebijakan ini sangat strategis karena mendukung berkurangnya tingkat resiko dan periode genangan banjir pada wilayah berpenduduk padat, wilayah strategis dan pusat-pusat perekonomian. Untuk memastikan visi misi Presiden yang dituangkan dalam Prioritas Nasional RPJMN 2010-2014 terpenuhi, maka Pemerintah juga menerbitkan Instruksi Presiden No. 1 Tahun 2010 tentang Percepatan Pelaksanaan Prioritas Pembangunan Nasional.
Tapi kita tidak bisa hanya mengandalkan pemerintah untuk melestarikan air. Perlu peran serta aktif dari kita semua agar air tidak  berlebih yang bikin rumah kita banjir, juga tidak kurang yang membuat kita akhirnya gak bisa mandi, juga kualitas air yang tetap terjaga supaya kita tidak selalu beli air mineral.

Lalu bagaimana sih cara kita bisa melestarikan air? Tidak sulit sih sebenarnya; setidaknya dimulai aja dari hal-hal kecil dari kita bangun tidur sampai tidur lagi. Misalnya jangan mandi di bathub, pakai saja yang siraman, dan jangan lama-lama, maksimal 4 menit untuk mandi. Ada lho alat semacam jam weker buat ngingetin kita kalo mandinya kelamaan, dan standarnya 4 menit itu. Kalo di jalan jangan buang sampah di parit atau melemparkan pembalut atau semacamnya itu di sungai. Kalau ada tetangga yang buang sampah sembarangan tolong diingatkan, jangan ditiru! Bayangin aja kalau sampai menyumbat kanal air dan akhirnya banjir, sayur-sayuran dan kotoran yang kita buang malah balik lagi ke rumah kita secara berjamaah, kan repot juga. Dan kalo nanti kita sudah kaya, jangan membangun rumah atau villa di daerah resapan air atau di daerah hulu, karena selain membuat daya serap air berkurang yang berakibat air turun aja ke daerah hilir, juga bisa menimbulkan longsor.

Nah, kalau sudah mulai sadar, yuk kita belajar lagi bagaimana mengelola dan melestarikan air sebagai sumber kehidupan anak cucu kita nantinya.

Ditulis untuk Good News From Indonesia oleh Dimas Kurnia Aditiawan

Sumber foto: flickr.com

WWF and The Nature Conservancy worked with the two governments to develop this innovative conservation financing approach.

The forest land is rich in wildlife and an important source for securing carbon. It is also a place that many local communities rely on for their livelihoods because it provides them with jobs and firewood to heat their homes.

How does this work?
Through the agreement, carried out under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, Indonesia’s debt to the U.S. of $28.5 million is “swapped” for investment over the next five to seven years in three Heart of Borneo forest districts.

The U.S. government is responsible for reducing Indonesia’s debt obligations by $20 million. WWF and The Nature Conservancy each provided $2 million. Because of the timing of the debt payments, the actual amount available for forest protection in Indonesia is $28.5 million.

Funding from this swap will help protect two WWF priority areas:

Kutai Barat District, where work will focus on protecting remaining natural forest, by converting degraded land into palm oil plantations
Kapuas Hulu, an area between Danau Sentarum and Betung Kerihun national parks that, if connected, would provide a place for orangutans and other wildlife to roam freely and for forest carbon to be stored

Why is this debt-swap important?
The debt-swap will provide many benefits to the region including:

funds invested in critical biodiversity conservation projects, such as protected areas and habitat corridors
strengthened role of communities in natural resource management through new projects and community managed areas
improved governance of natural resources through sustainable forestry practices and certification
enhancement of the land use planning process to minimize the impacts from unsustainable agriculture

source : www.worldwildlife.org

posted in Good News From Indonesia by Ratna Suwendiyanti

More than 50 new species have been discovered off the coast of Indonesia, including small, slender-bodied sharks that “walk” with their fins along coral reefs, researchers announced. In addition to the two types of walking epaulette sharks, the researchers discovered 22 species of other fish, 20 species of hard corals, and 8 kinds of shrimp all believed new to science. The new species were found during two recent expeditions to the Bird’s Head Seascape, a distinctive peninsula on the northwestern end of Indonesia’s Papua province that is already renowned for its marine biodiversity.

“It’s an incredible place in both the number of species and the abundance of marine wildlife,” said Roger McManus, senior director for global marine conservation at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Conservation International, which led the expeditions. The Missouri-size region is home to more than 1,200 types of reef fishes and nearly 600 species of hard corals. Whales, sea turtles, crocodiles, giant clams, manta rays, and dugongs also ply the peninsula’s waters.

“We knew this was an area important for marine diversity,” said Sebastian Troeng, director of regional marine programs for Conservation International. “We hadn’t expected that over 50 new species would be found in those two surveys. It is quite amazing.”

New Species

The two new shark species are particularly exciting, Troeng says. The sharks are about 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 meters) long and walk along the shallow reef flats on their fins, preying on shrimp, crabs, snails, and small fish. “If they get spooked they can swim away, but the thing that stands out is their walking over the bottom,” Troeng said.

Biologists studying these sharks suggest they could serve as models for the first animals that moved from marine environments onto land, he adds. McManus is fascinated by the mantis shrimp, which look and behave like praying mantises, insects whose arms flick out to catch their prey. Scientists have clocked the shrimps’ arms moving at 23 miles (37 kilometers) a second as they snare small fish and other reef critters. The speed and force has broken aquarium glass.

“That’s a lot of power, by the way,” McManus said. “These guys are the terrorists of the coral reef … They are really powerful, dangerous animals.” Among the new fish species are several types of “flasher” wrasses, named for the brilliant pink, yellow, blue, and green colors males display to entice females to mate.

All the new species were discovered in less than six weeks, which McManus says is a remarkable feat. That many are sizable creatures like fish is even more impressive. “Fish are not unknown groups,” he said. “To find so many really says something about the uniqueness of this place.”

Isolated Trove

Low human population density and surrounding deep and cold waters keep the peninsula isolated and protected, which likely helps explain the rich biodiversity, McManus says. However, the region faces an increasing threat from the use of dynamite and cyanide to catch fish, as well as from pollution from nearby mining and logging operations. McManus says the region’s local government recently approached Conservation International for help in developing a program to protect the region’s rich marine diversity. “This is a wonderful resource for the people of the region and far into the future, if taken care of, will continue to generate resources for them,” he said.

“Indonesia is making efforts in the negotiations on the establishment of a Climate Technology Center and Network (CTC-N) which is beneficial to developing nations,” Rachmat Witoelar, the head of the Indonesian delegation to the Panama Climate Change meeting, said in a press statement here on Monday.

Discussions on the mechanism for the transfer of technology to developing countries was among the main topics of the climate change meeting.

In the Copenhagen Meeting on Climate Change, delegations had agreed to design a mechanism for transfer of technology through the Technology Executive Committee (TEG) and CTC-N.

TEC will become a body formulating policy directives, while CTC-N will be a body that implements concrete actions for the transfer of technology to developing countries.

The Panama Climate Change meeting ended on October 7, 2011. The meeting`s results will be discussed in the next meeting in Durban, South Africa, which will be held in Durban, South Africa, on November 28 to December 9, 2011.

On funding pledged the developed nations for developing states, the Panama meeting talked about a plan to channel funds amounting to US$30 billion up to late 2012.

“However, developed countries should also be able to put forward their ideas on the mobilization of long-term funds reaching up to 100 billion US dollars by 2020,” Rachmat Witoelar said.

Agreements in Copenhagen and Cancun initiated the process of technology transfer from developed to developing countries to ensure low-emission, climate resilient development.

The idea to create an international “Technology Mechanism” was floated in the Copenhagen conference. The aim was to identify the gaps and provide technological solutions to reduce emissions and attain sustainable growth.

Rinca Island in September is ocherous and well-baked, the earth and sparse flora all beautiful burned-biscuit browns. There are skulls in the trees and dragons on the ground: Komodo dragons.

There are also baby dragons in the trees. “Once hatched, baby dragons hide in the trees so their parents can’t eat them,” says Park Ranger Agus, conspicuous in his saffron ranger shirt.

Komodos are monitor lizards, weighing in at between 150 to 300 pounds, with a length of up to three meters. There is a ruddy cast to their grey scales and their bowed legs give them a cowboy gait

“Dragons can run fast, but not far,” adds Agus, leaning on the forked wooden staff all Park Rangers carry. An alternative to the zigzag flight is to climb a tree: presumably one which doesn’t have a junior dragon salivating amid its upper boughs.

“Or you can just stand still. Motion makes a dragon want to pursue.”

It’s the tail-end of the July to September mating season. Female dragons usurp the ground nests dug by fellow islanders, the orange-footed fowl. They eat the bird eggs, then lay their own 15-30 grey eggs.

Suddenly one of the dragons is up and running, a swaying drunken run, beneath the kitchen where a trapdoor in the elevated floor has opened and food has been thrown out.
“They like fish bones,” explains Agus. “Fish bones are like peanuts to dragons.”

News and photo sources: Gangs of Indonesia (by Melanie Wood)

“The award is granted on Wednesday by Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan in Bali Room of Hotel Indonesia Kempinski in Jakarta, and received by PT Indocement’s Human Resources Director Kuky Permana,” company spokesman Sahat Panggabean said here on Thursday.

He said the Indonesia Green Awards 2011 was by Bisnis&CSR Magazine and supported by the Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia and La Tofi School of CSR.

“The ’earth inspiration award’ is granted to numbers of company and individual that strongly inspired to the public in environmental issues,” he said.

According to him, PT Indocement was granted an award for its initiative to use alternative fuels in cement production process and reduce dust emission based on the national standard, as well as planting and cultivating Jatropha Curcas on ex-quarry that associated with the Corporate Social Responsibility Program (CSR).

Panggabean said PT Indocement Tunggal Prakasa Tbk was the first cement sector project for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Prototype Carbon Fund, which would obtain three million tons of emission reductions from the project. He added that Indocement consists of two Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

The first reduces the quantity of energy-intensive clinker in blended cement and the second increases the use of alternative fuels, such as rice husk, coconut waste, car tires and waste oils in the cement making process.

The Indocement projects produce environmentally friendly, high-quality cement and provide an alternative solution to Indonesia’s waste disposal problems while creating employment opportunities in an alternative fuel supply chain.

He said the total greenhouse gas emission cuts over the ten year crediting period is estimated to be in the range of 10 to 12 million tons.

News Source: KOMPAS.com

Hosted by the Indonesian Consulate General in Chicago, the event showcased colorful woven fabrics, a photo and video presentation and a performance by Indonesian musicians.

“We are happy that the event is taking place in Chicago. We have to follow this event up with some other promotions and also infrastructure improvements,” Consul General Benny Bahanadewa said during the event at Crystal Garden at Navy Pier, Chicago.

A pre-recorded speech by Indonesian Ambassador to the United States Dino Pati Djalal was screened on television monitors, appreciating and welcoming visitors to the gathering.

The organizers were earlier concerned that the cold breeze around the city during the day would deter people from attending the event. Fortunately, around 200 people showed up. Everyone from aging professors, archeologists, teenagers to young girls came to Crystal Garden for the gathering.

Jeffrey A. Winters, an American expert on Indonesian politics, even brought his 13 students to the event to provide them with early information about the country they plan to visit sometime this year.

Indonesian tourism ambassador Hermawan Kartajaya emphasized the Komodo Night event was not the main purpose. He said the event was part of the Wonderful Indonesia campaign to promote many the many attractions and the breathtaking views of Komodo and Rinca islands in East Nusa Tenggara as a tourist destination.

“The more important thing is the improvement of infrastructure in those areas. Without an integrated effort from related institutions, this event will bear no fruit,” said Hermawan, the founder of marketing school MarkPlus.

The additional rounds of promotional events were apparently triggered by a spat between the New7Wonders foundation and the Indonesian government resulting in the government’s decision to withdraw the Komodo candidacy in the New7Wonders contest. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism later worked with MarkPlus to amplify the Komodo campaign on their own.

“I believe the [popularity of] Komodo does not depend on any foreign institutions,” Hermawan added.

Esthy Reko Astuty, the Ministry’s director for tourism promotion and publication, said the Komodo Night event obviously underlined the commitment of her office to help promote Komodo Island and its surrounding area as an alternative tourism site.

“We have many wonderful attractions. We are committed to promoting many other tourist attractions across the country and to the international community,” she said.

During the event, the Ministry presented “Friends of Komodo” certificates to Andrea Katalin Molnar, an anthropologist with the Northern Illinois University for her extensive research in Flores, and Alan Resetar, whose institution, The Field Museum in Chicago, has pursued extensive research on the Komodo dragon.

Marketing guru Philip Kotler, who is also the special ambassador for Indonesian tourism, praised the Indonesian people for their friendliness. He encouraged fellow Americans to come to Indonesia, a place where US President Barack Obama had lived as a child.

“Once you’re there [in Indonesia], you will be there more than once,” he said, referring to himself, as he regularly visits Indonesia.

House of Representatives member Jefri Riwu Kore applauded the komodo campaign, saying it would help people in his hometown improve their economy given a growing number of tourists.

News Source: TheJakartaPost.com

Two new undocumented mammals – a pygmy possum and a giant rat – have been found in the jungles of a remote mountain range in Indonesia’s Papua province, according to a conservation group. During an expedition to Papua’s Foja Mountains in June, Conservation International (CI) and Indonesian scientists documented the two mammals – a Cercartetus pygmy possum, one of the world’s smallest marsupials, and a Mallomys giant rat, the conservation group said in a statement.

Both mammals are currently under study and are apparently new to science, it said. The scientists, accompanied by a film crew, also recorded the mating displays of several rare and little-known birds for the first time.

Absolute realm

Scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and CI discovered dozens of new plants and animals on their first trip to the region, described as a “Lost World”, in late 2005. The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat, says Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, US.

“With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip,” he says. The Foja wilderness is part of the Mamberamo Basin, the largest unroaded tropical forest in the Asia Pacific region. “It’s comforting to know that there is a place on Earth so isolated that it remains the absolute realm of wild nature,” says Bruce Beehler, vice president of Conservation International, who led the expedition.

With 42 million hectares (104 million acres) of tropical forests and some of the richest bio-diversity in the world, Papua is considered the one of the country’s last rainforest frontiers. But it is under threat from increased clearing for palm oil plantations as well as illegal logging.

“The forests of West Sumatra have the ideal qualities and conditions for the implementation of climate change projects under the Kyoto Protocol scheme,” Hendri Koswara, an environmental affairs observer at Andalas University, said here Saturday.

But to actually implement such projects in West Sumatra`s forests, the local authorities must ensure institutional readiness, an adequate budget allocation and regulatory support, he said.

So far, the West Sumatra provincial government had issued Perda (bylaw) No 6/2008 on the utilization of customary lands.

“But since the issuance of the bylaw, the West Sumatra government had often faced dilemmas related to the lcal people`s rights in the relevant land management,” he said.

This situation then had given rise to the question of whether the policy or bylaw was indeed the result of careful contemplation or only a response to the issues that exists at the time the policy was adopted , like the climate change policy.

He said that the West Sumatra provincial government`s must have a certain direction response or to consider the consequences for the protection of the rights and interests of local indigenous communities.

Hendri said that on every Indonesian local government`s development plan also conducted in West Sumatra, and it should be done through a gradually process to accommodate the community`s aspirations.

“The issued by-law is naively did not used properly, on contrary, the policy was issued is still a public reaction on contextual political configuration,” Hendri said.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001.(*)

At least 20 new species of sharks and rays have been discovered in the waters off Indonesia, scientists announced. The finds are the result of a five-year survey—mostly done at local fish markets—to catalog what types of sea creatures are living, and being caught, in a region known for its rich aquatic diversity.

This sleek, spade-shaped Hortle’s whipray (see Figure 1), for example, is the newest of 17 whipray species known to live in the muddy shallows along Indonesia’s shores. The announcement also comes just six months after another expedition discovered more than 50 colorful and often strange new species among Indonesia’s coral reefs.

“Indonesia has the most diverse shark and ray fauna and the largest shark and ray fishery in the world,” said biologist William White in a statement from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), which led the new survey. “Before this survey, however, there were vast gaps in our knowledge of sharks and rays in this region.”

Distinguished by its trout-like colors and leopard-like spots, this Bali catshark (see Figure 2) is one of the 20 unusual new species discovered recently in Indonesia. From 2001 to 2006, researchers from five Australian and Indonesian institutions sampled more than 130 shark and ray species on 22 trips across the roughly 17,000 islands of Indonesia.

The project was the first in-depth survey of the country’s sharks and rays to be done in nearly 150 years. The last such study was done by Dutch biologist Pieter Bleeker, who cataloged more than 1,100 fish species in the region between 1842 and 1860. Much of the scientist’s research was discounted at the time, however, because his colleagues refused to believe that such a diversity of sea life was possible. In a long-delayed vindication of his work, biologists who took part in the new survey announced that they “agreed with Bleeker’s findings.”

With the body of a shark and the head of a ray, this Jimbaran shovelnose ray (see Figure 3) is living proof of the ancient relationship shared by the two fish families. Sharks and rays are both elsmobranchs, fish that have skeletons made of cartilage instead of bone. The Jimbaran shovelnose was discovered recently in Indonesia as part of a five-year survey of the country’s shark and ray species.

This species of shark recently discovered in Indonesia, called a whitefin smooth hound (see Figure 4), closely resembles similar sharks found as far away as Mexico. Its discovery may provide important insights into the effects of fishing on shark populations, as smooth hounds are commonly caught as food.

The growing popularity of shark-fin soup in regions from China to California has caused an increased demand for shark meat, which scientists say calls for close attention to the trade’s effects on shark numbers. “Good taxonomic information is critical to managing shark and ray species, which reproduce relatively slowly and are extremely vulnerable to overfishing,” said CSIRO biologist William White. “It provides the foundation for estimating population sizes, assessing the effects of fishing, and developing plans for fisheries management and conservation.”

Scuba divers, take note: The waters of the Raja Ampat Islands off Indonesia’s province of Irian Jaya may replace heralded Palau as the most species-rich sea in the world.

An international team of marine biologists who visited the Raja Ampats recently to examine the reefs said they found what may be an unparalleled array of species—corals, fishes, and mollusks—including some species never seen before. The reefs of the Raja Ampat Islands had not previously been explored in detail. The islands, which lie off Sorong on the northwest coast of sparsely populated and still largely undisturbed Irian Jaya, are extremely remote. Irian Jaya is the western half of the island of New Guinea. Gerald Allen from the Western Australia Museum in Perth led the recent scientific expedition, which was organized by Conservation International. Allen, an expert on coral reef fishes, broke his own world record, twice, for the number of species he saw in a one-hour dive—281 on one dive and 283 on another.

During the entire three-week expedition in March and April, Allen recorded seeing 950 different species of fish. The scientists surveyed an area of about 3,700 square miles (6,000 square kilometers). Their results revealed what they said was an extraordinary wealth of marine biodiversity: 450 species of hard coral, more than 600 mollusk species, and possibly as many as 1,100 fish species. Damselfish, one of the most abundant inhabitants of coral reefs, totaled more than 108—nearly as many as those recorded for all of the reefs surrounding the entire continent of Australia, according to the team’s coral experts.

Besides conducting an initial inventory of the region’s marine life, the scientists had set out to assess the condition of the Raja Ampats’ reefs to determine what conservation measures might be needed. One significant finding was evidence of damage to the area’s corals from illegal “blast fishing.” “The Raja Ampats are amazingly rich in marine biodiversity, but the reefs are threatened by illegal fishing and other human activities,” said Sheila McKenna, a marine biologist at Conservation International. She was a member of the expedition team, which also included researchers from the University of Cendrawasih in Irian Jaya’s capital, Jayapura.

Growing Threats

The Raja Ampats survey was preliminary, so whether the islands will surpass Palau as the place regarded as having the world’s richest biodiversity is not yet known. Experts estimate that the Palau archipelago, which lies 600 nautical miles east of the Philippines, has 700 species of coral and 1,400 fish species. Team member John Vernon, a scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science who is an expert on corals around the world, told Indonesia’s Tempo magazine that the survey suggests Raja Ampats may have a higher density of species than the Palau region.

The Raja Ampats lie in the heart of the “coral triangle”—an area encompassing reefs of northern Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. The Raja Ampat waters may be especially rich in species, the scientists said, because the islands lie at a point where sea currents from surrounding areas converge. That creates a conducive environment for fish, coral, and other organisms from various habitats. Relative to other reefs in the area, the marine biologists found the reefs of Raja Ampats to be in good condition. However, the scientists were particularly concerned by signs of damage from increased illegal fishing by local people and commercial fishing boats from Thailand and the Philippines.

A growing number of fishers use dynamite and cyanide blasts to stun the fish. The fish then float at the surface of the water, making them easy to catch and sell. The dynamite and cyanide also kill the corals, which biologists liken to rain forests in the uniqueness and importance of their biodiversity. In some regions of Indonesia, fishing with explosives has reduced coral cover by as much as 80 percent, according to the World Fish Center, based in Penang, Malaysia. In the Raja Ampats’ reefs, damage from dynamite and cyanide was seen at 15 percent of the sites the Conservation International team examined.

The researchers said they were also concerned about siltation of the reefs from illegal logging in adjacent areas. The sedimentation smothers and can eventually kill coral and fish. Waters around the Raja Ampat archipelago and other islands in the area were declared nature reserves in the early 1990s, but illegal logging has been a big problem throughout Indonesia, especially in the aftershocks of the Asian economic crisis. “The results of our assessment point to the need to work closely with the local communities to better manage and protect this stunning and vital area,” said McKenna.

Conservation Crucial
The survey by the ten-member scientific team included a study of how people in the region use and depend on the region’s marine resources, which has important implications for managing and preserving the reefs. An estimated 7,700 people live in 22 communities scattered across the Raja Ampat cluster of both large and small islands. The survey indicated that more than 90 percent of the adult population of the Raja Ampats is engaged in subsistence-level fishing. Because of this dependency, the scientists said, local government officials and village leaders must be included in any national and international planning of how to ensure long-term survival of the region’s marine wealth.

One conservation strategy that could help, the scientific team suggested, is working to have the Raja Ampats designated a World Heritage Site. “The Raja Ampat Islands are certainly deserving of World Heritage status and every effort should be made to conserve them,” said Vernon. Conservation International is preparing a final report on the results of its survey of the Raja Ampats. Officials of the group said the report will include guidelines on how to ensure community-based protection of the area’s reefs and other marine resources.

Some conservationists have suggested that Palau, an independent group of islands in the Philippine Sea, might provide a good model for strategies to conserve the Raja Ampat Islands. Eager to conserve its reefs and natural beauty to insure the area’s appeal as a tourist destination, the government of Palau protects much of its surrounding seas.

Marco, begitu sapaan akrabnya, menempuh pendidikan formal di Wesley College dan kemudian melanjutkan studinya di Curtin University Australia. Business Managament and Marketing serta Sport Science (Double degree) menjadi pilihan yg tepat untuknya. Hal tersebut tentu bukan tanpa alasan. Bisnis garmen (@majagarment) yang kini ditekuni, menjadi bukti keseriusannya dalam dunia bisnis walau usia relatif terbilang muda.

Mungkin Anda masih ingat dengan sebuah ajang pemilihan Green Ambassador yang sempat menjadi trending topic di situs jejaring sosial twitter. Nama Marco Devian mulai akrab setelah gelar 2nd Runner up dan Best Social Media Influencer berhasil disandangnya dalam ajang bergengsi tersebut. Kemampuan dan pengetahuan seputar lingkungan ia pelajari secara autodidak dengan melakukan green campaign selama 11 di negeri kangguru, Australia .

Kesadaran akan green lifestyle sudah melekat dalam dirinya, hingga bisnis @majagarment yang kini ia rintis pun menerapkan green business practice. Konsep Green Business merupakan upaya penerapan efesiensi dan efektivitas bisnis dengan nilai-nilai bermuatan lingkungan. Hal tersebut meliputi office layout, distribusi, dan juga upaya daur ulang produk (Maja Green). Lebih jauh Marco menuturkan, konsep green business practice juga berarti berbisnis dengan jujur dan memberi kualitas terbaik pada seluruh stakeholders.

Prestasi di bidang olahraga pernah pula ia raih di tingkat internasional, diantaranya Juara 1 Blue Gum Tennis Championship, Best and Fairest Player 2008 Wesley College, dan Juara 3 Melville Tennis Championship 2006.

Pria yang tumbuh sebagai atlet dan dididik dengan pola pikir seorang entrepreneur ini juga berprestasi dalam hal akademik, terbukti dengan keberhasilannya meraih Highest Score for Economic Subject saat menempuh pendidikan di perguruan tinggi Australia. (VQ)

Written for Good News From Indonesia by Vicky Dwisaputra