T

he Papuan Bird'€™s Head Peninsula (BHP) is located in the heart of the Coral Triangle (CT) in south eastern Indonesia, encompassing over 22.5 million hectares of sea and small islands in West Papua.

BHP is known as an area with the richest diversity of reef, fish and coral species in the world. It is also considered the global epicenter of tropical shallow water marine biodiversity.

The seascape encompasses a high diversity of habitats, including the highly enclosed shallow Cenderawasih Bay, to shallow fringing, barrier, patch and lagoon and atoll reefs in Raja Ampat to mangrove '€” dominated coasts, rivers and inlets in Bintuni Bay.

However, the seascape also includes critical habitats for globally threatened marine species such as turtles, sharks, whales, dolphins, dugongs and crocodiles.

Coastal areas and islands in the BHP have wide range of forest types '€” sago, palm and mixed swamps, mangrove wetlands, sub-montane and primary lowland forests. The BHP lies at the center of biodiversity for seagrass (Short et al., 2007, McKenzie, 2007).

The BHP boasts the highest diversity of corals, reef fishes and stomatopods in the world (Veron et al., 2009; Allen and Erdmand, 2012). Coral diversity at the BHP has reached 75 percent of world'€™s coral (Wallace et al., 2011).

Major nesting beaches for green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtles are found on the coasts and small islands of the BHP.

Furthermore, this region is considered a cetacean hotspot (Kahn, 2009) and supports a diverse and healthy population for numerous species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.

Unfortunately, along with the establishment of CT, which includes the BHP areas over the last decade, environmental issues have been concerned with threats faced by marine biodiversity in the areas.

This interest has been driven by the high diversity in the region and growing concerns over the impacts of rapid escalation in development.

Between 2011 and 2012, we conducted a survey on wildlife hunting in eleven villages in Abun and Amberbaken districts, Tambrauw regencies. We realized that BHP is not only rich in renewable natural resources but also in crude oil, gas and minerals such as gold, copper and nickel.

We encountered the fact that Akram Resources '€” the Indonesian partner of Hillgrove Resources from Australia, a mining company, has been awarded an exploration license covering 99,230 hectares or 992.3 square kilometers (km) for a seven- year term within 40 km of the coast of Warmandi village, Abun district, in the BHP.

Furthermore, Medco Energy, which has logged and planted since 2009, proposed 45,000 hectares for an oil palm plantation in Sidey district, Manokwari.

Regrettably, we also realized that 571 km of the trans-West Papua road splits many pristine forests between Manokwari and Sorong. The expansion of roads not only leads to increasing forest loss at a rate of 50 soccer fields a minute but it also spews billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year.

Again, the pristine tropical rainforest in the BHP will soon be jeopardized and converted for the sake of development.

Facts that have been come across might have severe impacts on particular species that rely on forest-interior and under-storey conditions, and are susceptible to the environmental changes associated with forest clearings.

To further complicate the issue, the direct effects of mining, logging and plantations (alteration of forest structure and increased fragmentation) on animal populations and biodiversity are often confounded by indirect effects (hunting, disease transmission and deforestation for agriculture).

The opening of forests to logging sets off a domino effect of road construction, immigration of job seekers and an escalation of commercial hunting and trade.

Ironically, road development has also destroyed large areas of wildlife habitats and has threatened nomadic and large vertebrates, also leading to the increased harvesting of wild meat from forest landscapes along the coastal site to meet wildlife-market demand in Manokwari and Sorong and other towns.

Consequently, the pressure of hunting on wildlife populations such as deer, wild pigs, cuscus and other mammals, has elevated over time.

The extension of land conversion for mining, oil palm plantations and logging companies, followed by the construction of roads along the coastal between Manokwari and Sorong, may also trigger erosion, run-off topsoil to beaches, beach modification and coastal vegetation removal, all of which could have
severe impacts on threatened and protected species.

The need for new strategies is underscored by the fact that most tropical forests lie in developing nations, where poor governance and corruption threaten protected areas.

Poverty often pushes people to overexploit forest resources to improve their livelihoods and governments depend on extractive industries such as oil production and logging to generate revenues.

A report by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said that until March 2013, West Papua was among eight provinces with the highest poverty rate (26.67 percent), second after neighboring Papua (31.13 percent).

In addition to anthropogenic threats, coastal and marine areas in the BHP are also threatened by a combination of climate change impacts '€” increased frequency and severity of elevated sea surface temperature and extreme weather events, sea-level rise and ocean acidification.

The combination of these threats will result in increased coastal erosion, inundation and displacement of wetlands and coastal lowlands in addition to increased flooding and storm damage as well as saltwater intrusion into freshwater sources (Klein and Nicholls, 1999).

Given the reliance of local communities on coastal resources, including groundwater for consumption and crop irrigation, climate change impacts resulting from sea level rise, heat stress and related coral leaching and mortality, may likely affect their future livelihoods and food security.

The BHP is currently struggling to keep up with rapid environmental, social and economic changes. For that reason, the central government and NGOs as well as local governments and stakeholders, need to come together and develop effective and sustainable coastal and marine resource management.

The development of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) '€” currently 12 MPAs have been established and gazetted '€œbottom up'€ through community customary adat declarations and bylaws '€” reinforced by national law, should be a key tool to address the issue of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in the area.

Doing so will not only improve accountability and legitimacy of the approaches taken but will also strengthen and increase the capacity building of informal institutions in controlling access and managing natural resources.

Furthermore, Law No. 26/2007 and No. 27/2007 should be considered the legal framework to reform spatial planning.

Finally, the empowerment of local governments and local communities to manage these resources is critical for future sustainability and food security in the BHP.

The writer are lecturers at Papua State University (UNIPA) in Manokwari, West Papua, and are members of the Society for Indonesian Biodiversity (MBI).