Tangled Up in a Global Net

Morgan Harrington ,  The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER   |  Thu, 04/23/2009 7:00 PM  |  Life

After years of destructive fishing practices, researchers hope the fish of the Spermonde Archipelago won’t be the ones that get away forever. Morgan Harrington visits the remote islands off Sulawesi.

Floating just seven nautical miles east of Makassar is Barrang Caddi, part of the Spermonde Archipelago. Its 3,000 residents live squashed together on little more than one square mile; barely 10 square meters of Barrang Caddi is not built on. It is hard to imagine that the government far away in Jakarta would be concerned with a place like Barrang Caddi – it has electricity for just six hours a day and no running water – but the island clearly demonstrates how wider forces drive the destruction of the important marine ecosystem around these far-flung communities.

Every facet of life here is entangled in an international web of market forces, which has in turn created a perilous relationship with the local environment. Years of blast and cyanide fishing have critically depleted fish stocks and decimated surrounding reefs. To supplement incomes, the locals have become foot soldiers in the lucrative global trade of rare and endangered species.

As the orange-spotted grouper and other endangered species the fishermen of Barrang Caddi sedate with cyanide are eaten by the rising middle class in China or gazed at in the aquariums of wealthy Europeans, Japanese and North Americans, back home at least 10 houses have been claimed by the ocean, as the sand, no longer protected by the reefs, erodes at an increasing rate.

A group of German and Indonesian researchers has taken the first steps toward addressing these problems. Working together as cluster six of the Science for the Protection of Coastal Marine Ecosystems (SPICE) program, the natural and social scientists from the Center for Tropical Maine Ecology (ZMT), which is affiliated with the University of Bremen in Germany, the Bandung Institute of Technology and UNHAS Makassar, are supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Indonesia’s Agency for Marine and Fisheries Research (DKP).

Cluster six of SPICE, whose main focus is the Spermonde Archipelago, is the first to apply socioecological analysis to the problem of the destruction of marine ecosystems. Seldom are the concerns and everyday realities of local people considered during environmental policymaking, and it is this incongruence that the researchers seek to address.

Dr. Marion Glaser, an environmental sociologist and coordinator of cluster six, says the goal of the research is to determine the interaction between people’s livelihoods and the ecosystem: “What we are seeking to do is, firstly, establish what the past of the reef was, and then discuss with them what is desirable for the future.”

Like the other islands in the Spermonde Archipelago and so many other areas in Indonesia, the punggawa/sawi or patron/client system rules Barrang Caddi. The (relatively) wealthy punggawa, who live at the front of the island, rent boats and lend money to the sawi, relegated to the back of the island. The two are engaged in a constant cycle of debt and payment. To get an accurate picture of what is going on, the researchers are conducting sessions with groups from all sectors of the community.

“We want a diverse group of people: men, women, the youth, the rich and the dependents,” Dr. Glaser says. “Once we have established what they want we will ask ‘how can we do this?’”

Dr. Glaser is not alone in stressing that the SPICE team comes with no specific agenda, seeking only to inform and facilitate problem solving.

The SPICE researchers are focusing on areas with similar problems – environmental degradation, unsustainable livelihoods and resource depletion – not just in Spermonde, but also across their other research sites in Indonesia and Brazil. The ultimate question, Dr. Glaser says, is, “how do you link various ecosystem problems across different sites around the world?”

While many residents of Spermonde dismiss the suggestion that there are now fewer fish by saying it is an act of God or simply a seasonal occurrence, others are more concerned.

“When I fished 40 years ago the fish were this big,” says Malik, stretching his arms wide. “Now the same fish are the size of your finger.”

Today, the elderly man no longer fishes but spends his days playing the guitar. And most fishermen now make a living not from meat fish but from octopus and the trade of live rare and endangered species, including the Napoleon Wrasse fish. A cement tank on the narrow shore of Barrang Caddi holds the fish, which are given just enough cyanide to keep them sedated until they are shipped around the world; the use of the chemical is hard to detect.

Hajji Amin, head patron of the live reef fishery business on Barrang Caddi and several surrounding islands, explains that the forestry department allows each island to catch and sell 1,000 of the threatened black-and-white fish every year. Grouper, another commonly caught species, can fetch up to $US120 per kilogram on the international market.

The increasing demand for these types of fish internationally means that circumventing the law is profitable for everyone involved.

If more than 1,000 Napoleon Wrasse are caught, Hajji Amin explains, Barrang Caddi simply trades them through a neighboring island. Although trading endangered species can carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a Rp 100 million (US$9,500) fine, as SPICE researcher Dr. Sebastian Ferse points out, “these people are the law”.

In addition to the punggawa/sawi relationship that rules the islands, it is alleged the police can be very easily bribed. Throw in some allegations that Army members are responsible for selling the dynamite to the fishermen in the first place and a rather bleak picture begins to emerge.

But there is hope. Although their study is only in its initial phase, the SPICE researchers have grand visions for the Spermonde Archipelago.

“To reduce the pressure on our natural resources we really need to reduce the number of fishermen and change the way that they manage our precious natural resources,” says Sven Blankenhorn, a sustainable mariculture adviser for PT Mars Symbioscience. “To accomplish this we will need to provide potentially 80 percent of the current fishermen with an alternate livelihood and teach the remaining 20 percent how to fish in a sustainable way.”

PT Mars Symbioscience has a vested interest in the livelihoods of the people on these islands because the company uses a lot of fish by-products to produce cat food and is one of the world’s largest users of carrageenan, which is derived from seaweed.

“So there is a very direct connection between Mars’ business and the marine environment,” Blankenhorn says.

“Small island and coastal communities traditionally rely almost entirely on captive fisheries and now the fish are basically gone. Many communities are on the brink of failure and we need to urgently help them to change their behavior to ensure that they will have a prosperous life in the future, sustainably producing the fish, seaweed or other things we need.”

Mars could be a potential partner for SPICE and other pilot projects, Blankenhorn says.

“We want to change the behavior of the traditional hunters of the sea to help them become sustainable farmers of the sea. The challenges are very significant and complex, and the only way to drive sustainable change is through a coordinated approach with all stakeholders, government, research institutes, NGOs, businesses and the island and coastal communities working together to develop a more sustainable future.”

The SPICE researchers are also looking for viable alternatives, should they be deemed appropriate by the communities.

“If we can find a way to implement algae cultivation it would replace their need for blast fishing and take them out of the cycle of debt,” said Irendra Radjawali, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bremen and a SPICE researcher.

Not only can the algae be synthesized into carrageenan, the food and cosmetics industries are also large consumers of the substance. Its power can also be harnessed for electricity generation; the potential of wave power is being investigated.

Dr. Verania Andria, a SPICE researcher interested in applying renewable power generation technologies in the archipelago, spoke with the wives of Barrang Caddi’s sawis. “They realize that the fish are becoming less and less and they have experiences with their husbands that during some seasons, like when the west monsoon comes, that they have to leave their house for a really long time, more than a month, and go really far to find any fish at all. They expect better for their children,” she said.

In the long term, she would like to see the implementation of biogas power plants running on sustainably cultivated algae.

“I am interested to see if bioenergy can be used on a small scale,” she says. “The culture of the macroalgae, the seaweed, is a source of biomass and could be used for biogas or biodiesel, in the case of macroalgae. It’s not for every island, but maybe we could choose one island and use it as the center for biogas production and a center for biofuels, which could be distributed to the other islands.”

The researchers are planning to experiment with seaweed cultures on Saugi island.

In the meantime, Barrang Caddi is looking at using a newly installed block of public toilets as a source for biogas.

“I really like the initiative with the biogas with the public toilet. That is just a small starting point but it has promise,” Dr. Andria says, explaining that the methane power of the waste can be harvested.

“The potential for biogas here is promising because it can deal with two problems: the waste and also the production of the energy.”

But, Dr. Andria says, the Indonesian government’s energy policy is flawed because “they are thinking way too big”.

“The government is talking about such a macro scale, they claim they want to replace [fossil] fuels on a national scale but that is unrealistic.”

What they aren’t doing, she says, is listening to the needs of the people. She cites Jakarta’s recent kerosene-to-LPG conversion program: “They didn’t even make sure there were sufficient provisions or investigate the community’s acceptance of the technology before they took away an essential commodity.”

When it comes to sustainability, there is no silver bullet, especially in a region as diverse as Indonesia: Needs must be determined on the ground. Dr. Andria suggests building breakwaters as a “cheap and very effective” way to address the problem of rising waves facing not just Barrang Caddi but also thousands of islands across the country.

The scientists will address these concerns when they present their findings to policy makers and legislators in 2010.

Echoing the sentiments of her colleagues, Dr. Andria says that solutions to the problems facing the Spermonde Archipelago and Indonesia at large must be “orchestral”: “Every part must work together. There is no use the conductor waving his baton if the violins aren’t ready.”

Blankenhorn agrees, citing the example of protected marine areas.

“They are a great idea and they have been proven to benefit neighboring communities because they produce more fish and they spill over into neighboring areas, but that will take time, maybe 10 or 15 years.

“But in those 10 to 15 years, what are the people supposed to do?”

He argues that a combination of strategies must be used.

The impacts of these unsustainable livelihoods are more obvious on Karanrang island, further out on the Spermonde Archipelago. Here fishermen go to sea in unmarked, identically colored boats, their faces hidden by balaclavas, “for the sun”. Maimed limbs are not uncommon, a blunter deterrent to unsustainable mariculture.

The problems facing these islands are not insurmountable, but no changes be made until alternative livelihood options become viable.

Dr. Andria is optimistic. “We just need to start small, but integrated.”

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