Maritime riches
I was delighted to read the contribution by Santo Darmosumarto of Pondok Gede in his column in The Jakarta Post of Nov. 8, 1999, captioned Maritime security, enlivening thereby the discussion of the topic among the interested readers.
The writer rightly commented that my writing represented an exemplary attempt to arouse awareness of Indonesia's maritime potential. Space would not suffice to elaborate on other pertinent aspects of the subject, such as that dealing with maritime security from the hand of Mr. Darmosumarto. To be true, my writing is intended to serve another purpose. It is to generate awareness among school children and teachers regarding the maritime riches of the Indonesian archipelago.
An editorial review of my writing caused a concluding paragraph to be deleted. It elicited an appeal to our young generation in the new millennium to start acquainting themselves with introductory studies on the subject of maritime riches in elementary and secondary schools, corresponding to the needs of the new era. This proves that I had the schoolchildren in mind when I raised the subject. I thought that the topic of maritime riches raised by President Abdurrahman Wahid during his visit to his hometown of Jombang in East Java may well have signaled an opportune occasion to generate popular interest in the natural riches of the sea.
I happen to have an old atlas entitled The Seas (in Japanese: Umi) published by Satoshi Kako, Ph.D. in Maritime Technology, of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Published in 1969 the book reached its 30th printing by 1983. The book represents as atlas showing aquarelles drawn by the author himself, depicting all kinds of sceneries of the living, non-living resources and minerals at the bottom of the seas. One picture shows a fishing boat on the surface spreading out a trawl net (Japanese: nagashi-sashi ami) along the bottom of a fishing bank, into which a swarm of fish are caught.
Another picture depicts ocean mining with the installation of oil-drilling mechanisms and structures on the surface of the seas, but shows robots and exploring equipment at the bottom of the continental shelf, while the different layers containing oil deposits at a depth of 200 to 300 meters are shown.
Many other interesting features show images of the cultivation beds of shell-fish in shoals as sea farmers are reaping the harvest of shell-fish and seaweed. Then a picture shows the sequence of slopes and plains downward to the bottom of the sea, ranging from continental shelf (Japanese: riku dana), continental slope (riku dana gake) continental rise (umi dana) abyssal plain (kaikoo), at depths respectively of 100 to 200 m, 500 m, 3,000 m and from 6,000 to 8,000 m.
Imagine that the Japanese school children are taught the different slopes and plains following the continental shelf down to the abyssal plain.
In Indonesian schools, a popular awareness of the existence of the continental shelf and the other plains may not even be in vogue.
The atlas published by Satoshi Kako is written in Hiragana (simplified Japanese characters), as the narration is addressed to school children.
A phrase from the text reads: (translated from Japanese) Well, how about examining the sea for yourself, exploring the sea's riches and getting to love the sea?
A similar question should be addressed to Indonesian school children. Part of their energy and time used in the excessive reading of comic books may well be switched to reading useful introductory books on the natural riches of the sea, so think I.
S. SUHAEDI