Govt to protect larger coastal area

Govt to protect larger coastal area

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia plans to extend its coastal protected
zones to 20 million hectares within the next five years, up from
2.6 million at present, a government official says.

Triono Soendoro, Chief of the Marine, Aerospace, Environment,
Science and Technology Department at the National Development
Planning Board (Bappenas) said yesterday that the proposed
extension of protection was a crucial part of the National
Biodiversity Program.

In order to achieve this ambitious goal, the government would
need the support of groups within the community, as well as that
of both non-government and government agencies, Triono told a
joint Australia-Indonesia workshop on coastal management.

Currently, the total marine conservation and marine park areas
in Indonesia cover 2,605,785 hectares, according to official
figures.

The three-day Australia-Indonesia Integrated Coastal Zone
Management Workshop was opened yesterday by Australian Charge
d'Affaires Ian Porter and First Assistant to the State Minister
for Environment Surna Djajadiningrat.

The aim of the workshop, Porter said, was to identify the
issues faced by coastal zone planners and managers and to discuss
viable options on the basis of the Australian experience in
coastal zone environmental and resource management.

Triono said Indonesia hoped to learn from Australia about
marine conservation, which has been implemented there for the
past 25 years.

"But coming from different social and cultural backgrounds,
they will also learn a lot from what we have been doing here in
that field," he said.

Richard Kenchington, Director of the External Services Section
of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, said
that a sound, integrated coastal management system was needed to
solve problems occurring in coastal zones.

He said that problems in these areas were linked to each other
and conflicts of interests were common.

Problems occurring in coastal zones were not only linked to
fisheries, he said, but were also related to ecological, social,
economic, geological, judicial, cultural, bureaucratic and
political factors.

Chris Crossland, Director of the Cooperative Research Centre
for the Sustainable Development of the Great Barrier Reef, said
that, in designing an integrated management scheme, it was
necessary to take into account the impact of urbanization,
tourism, agriculture, industrialization, fishing and natural
disasters, such as tsunamis and storms.

Graham Harris of the CSIRO's INRE coastal management project
office stressed the need for policy-makers to "understand how
things work," so that they can link policies with the ecological
requirements of coastal zones. (pwn)