National gathering held to standarize reef check program

Alit Kertaraharja ,  Contributor ,  Buleleng   |  Sun, 10/26/2008 12:01 PM  |  Bali

The Indonesia Reef Check Working Network (JKRI) held a national meeting at Sembiran Beach, Buleleng, to establish a standardized reef check program, a senior activist says.

The four-day meeting, which concluded Saturday, was attended by representatives from 19 reef check networks across the country.

"The main agenda is to formulate a better coordination mechanism in order to improve the capacity of the participating regional networks," the national gathering's coordinator, Jensi Sartin, said Friday.

"We also used the gathering as an opportunity to compile, share and synchronize the data collected by the regional networks," he added.

Organized by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia and Indonesia Reef Check Foundation, the gathering's committee also held training workshops on the standardization of both reef check programs and coral fish trade surveys.

"The workshops aimed to improve the skills, knowledge and capacity of the networks' members to carry out reef checks and trade surveys using methods in accordance with the accepted international standard,"he said.

Sartin said he hoped future results from reef check programs and trade survey conducted by the participating network would meet international standards and could be verified at regional, national and international levels.

Sartin said he regretted that Indonesia hadn't properly managed its stock of living coral fish.

"The natural resource (living coral fishes) is huge, but it hasn't been managed properly,"he said.

Up until now, he said, the country didn't have an accurate database on the maritime resource.

"We have no data on the number of fishes caught at any period of time, the sizes of the fishes, the number of major fish traders or the selling prices of the fishes."

The need for better management of maritime resources and comprehensive data has been repeatedly voiced by various organizations, but the government has not given a concrete response, Satin said.

Reef checks have been carried out in Indonesian waters for a decade as an effort to monitor and gauge the condition of the archipelago's coral reefs. Reef check programs use the presence and the number of several objects, such as hard coral, living reef, and various reef fishes, to determine whether a coral reef field is in a healthy condition or not.

Through the cooperation the tourism industry, local environmental activists and marine activity enthusiasts, JKRI has conducted regular reef surveys at numerous spots across the country, Sartin said.

"The threats to coral reef continue to increase.

We need to address these threats with all the resources we have."

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.