Coral reefs protection: Let's talk about money

Placido, Contributor, Jakarta

"Henry" and many others in Manado earn their living from fishing. When the competition for bigger fish gets too keen, they resort to every means available, including the use of poison and blast fishing.

Henry and his colleagues may think they have found the best way to make ends meet. However, they don't understand that their activities contribute to the degradation of coral reefs, thus gradually destroying their future source of income.

Environmentalists around the world are puzzling over the same question: how to make money from the sea without destroying the coral reefs?

A recent master's course in the North Sulawesi capital of Manado discussed possible ways to save the coral reefs, including providing "money for the locals".

No, this solution did not involve bribes. But it referred instead to a long-term project aimed at generating income for the inhabitants of coastal villages where coral reefs are the most important source of food and economic opportunities.

Of course there are other causes contributing to the destruction of Indonesia's reefs, such as sedimentation, pollution and climate change.

However, the fishing practices of Henry and his colleagues play a major part in the destruction, according Lida Pet Soede, World Wide Fund for Nature Indonesia's program manager for fisheries.

She had been quoted as saying that "up to 80 percent of Indonesia's reefs have been severely degraded in this way".

Indonesia has 362 hard-coral species and 76 genera, which puts it at the epicenter of the world's coral reef diversity. However, the archipelago has accounted for more than 50 percent of coral reef degradation around the world.

Let's remind ourselves that while coral reefs only cover 0.2 percent of the ocean area, they are home to one-third of marine fish and to tens of thousands of other species.

Also, 50 percent of the world's population currently live within sixty kilometers of the coast -- at present, that is more than three billion people. By the year 2008, the world population will exceed 6.7 billion people, with 3.4 billion of us living in coastal areas.

In Indonesia alone there are 67,500 coastal villages, and these depend primarily on coral reefs, while globally it is estimated that coral reefs form an essential part of the livelihoods of about 500 million people and contribute at least US$400 billion a year to the world economy.

It follows that while it is needed to act locally, it is a must to think globally; and while it is imperative to educate locals, knowledge has to be a universally shared commodity.

The master's course in Manado included a discussion titled "Knowledge and Management of the Biodiversity of the Indo-Pacific Coral Reefs". The main issue of the discussion was how to find a way to make biodiversity an economic value rather than a mere object of exploitation.

One way is to convince fishermen like Henry to look after the coral instead of blowing it up.

Nonetheless, a similar approach was taken in 1998 with the World Bank-sponsored project, "Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program".

Money was no question here, since the bank had allocated $6.9 million for the project.

The program was implemented by the National Development Planning Agency and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, and centered on two pilot communities in the Taka Bone Rate National Park in South Sulawesi and the Lease Islands in Maluku.

Here the reefs were turned into sanctuaries and the locals were trained to manage them. The results have been positive but the implemented solution considered too concentrated on limited cases with limited activity.

The master's course is the product of a scientific and technological cooperation between Italy and Indonesia, and is financially supported by the Italian Ministry of Education.

While it does not have the World Bank's financial muscle, it seems to have a deeper understanding of the problem and a multidimensional approach to its solution.

Its organizers actually aim to create several viable economic opportunities to replace activities that lead to coral reef destruction.

Obviously, scuba diving and snorkeling tourism are the first ideas that come to mind and the easiest to achieve. But other ideas should not be underestimated. The breeding of fish and invertebrates for ornamental purposes, and the development of a pharmaceutical industry are two declared objectives.

Several species of coral can be asexually reproduced and reared on artificial substrata, and it is not a secret that many substances of pharmaceutical interest -- even some antibiotics -- are extracted from marine animals.

The master's course is co-taught by 20 Italian professors from Genoa and Ancona universities, and four Indonesian professors from the University of Manado, with the cooperation of the Celebes Diving school of Manado. "Sharing and creating new knowledge" is the key for the success of the cooperation.

Professor Bavestrello, one of the lectures and author of more than 150 publications on the subject explains: "We consider knowledge as the base to manage biodiversity. You cannot make a learnt managerial decision unless you know what you are dealing with.

"In North Sulawesi many species are still poorly documented or even unknown, which makes it difficult to operate. To research and classify these species is therefore the first step. We have a vast experience in these fields due to the same kind of work carried out in the Mediterranean Sea reserves and we plan to share it with Indonesian students so that, eventually, they can carry on independently."

Starting from classifying microorganism is a long way to protecting coral reefs, but the organizers believe that in a few years the economic opportunities that such an initiative will open will provide work for a large stratum of qualified and unqualified local people, and maybe it will give locals like Henry a different way to earn a living.