Preserving Indonesia's coasts essential for national well-being

Preserving Indonesia's coasts essential for national well-being

Sukristijono Sukardjo, Jakarta

In Indonesia, coasts are home to the highest concentration of people, ethnically mixed, and provide a natural resource base on which such a broad range of human activities depends that they are areas vulnerable to social conflict.

Indonesia is one of the largest maritime countries in the world. Its coastal zone -- where land meets sea and where fresh and salt waters mix -- contains many of the earth's most complex, diverse and productive ecological systems; and is a treasure trove of diverse natural resources, which make up the most fundamental elements of the Indonesian environment.

The coastal zones in each of the archipelago's thousands of islands are unique, ecological and biological domains of vital importance to a wide array of terrestrial and aquatic life-forms, including of course humankind; they are amazing habitats/areas that are never static. Species diversity in coastal environments differs markedly from those in terrestrial and oceanic systems.

Abundant forage materials and nutrients attract many species and many species depend upon the coastal habitats for part of their life-cycle. Many coastal ecosystems depend on finely balanced nutrient supplies. They are fragile systems that are always destroyed or impaired by pollutants. Individual species such as a fish and shellfish thrive in the habitats and ecosystems -- coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, wetlands and tidelands, estuaries, and beaches -- found on our coasts. Here, our fishery resources are spawned and nurtured, offering nursery, feeding and breeding habitats for many marine species.

Deforestation and agricultural activities occurring far inland can also give rise to the pollution of coastal systems through siltation and run-off of fertilizer and pesticides -- Jakarta Bay being a prime example. Land-based pollution accounts for over 75 percent of marine pollution in Indonesia and is generated by both urban and rural land use. These areas support our economy and literally feed the nation.

Over-fishing, over-exploitation, and pollution are putting a tremendous strain on our coastal resources, however, resulting in the loss of fishery habitats, water quality, and various types of marine life from corals, seagrasses to mangroves to fishes.

If our coastal environment is not conserved or managed well, resource-use conflicts and threats to food security will inevitably add to our country's social and economic development problems.

Already vulnerable to natural phenomena such as tsunami, typhoons, cyclones and coastal storms, our coastal communities are facing an even greater risk from all kinds of unmanaged and potentially harmful human activities. The unrestrained pursuit of multiple activities in coastal zones inevitably leads to competition for finite resources, environmental degradation and often environmental and social conflict, like in Buyat Bay, in North Sulawesi, and Jakarta Bay.

Furthermore, development practices that ignore the dynamics of coastal systems island-by-island can be catastrophic, as evidenced by the increasing loss of lives, property and investment due to coastal flooding and erosion. The destruction of natural barriers to coastal flooding -- reefs, mangroves and dunes -- further increases the vulnerability of coastal populations, as does localized land subsidence, which may be induced by large-scale extraction of ground water, oil and gas. Further threats of sea-level rises and other possible impacts of global warming are also in our face.

Open access to coastal resources has resulted in over-fishing. Dynamite fishing, cyanide poisoning, industrial pollution, domestic waste, and siltation are destroying our coastal reefs and seagrass beds. Our mangrove forests are being converted into fishponds, beach resorts, and residential and industrial estates, further reducing the natural habitats of various fish, shellfish, and crustaceans found in our coastal zones.

The result: a declining fish catch, which has already led to a situation where most fishing activities are becoming economically unviable. Thousands of hectares of the waterlogged coastal zone resources have been lost country-wide in unsustainable development programs. More are going, and this is unfortunate because it is now known that these so-called "wastelands" are a resource as valuable as good farmland and, in their own unique way, equally productive.

Despite widespread coastal degradation in Indonesia, opportunities still exist for sustainable development and for remedial action in heavily impacted areas -- Aceh, North Sumatra and Nias.

A prerequisite, however, is a genuine commitment to coastal management, not just by governments (provincial and central), but also by the multitude of users and beneficiaries of coastal resources. Reconciling coastal conflicts will require measures that are more integrated, adaptive, system-oriented and far- sighted than the sector approaches commonly adopted.

Community participation is therefore an inherent and integral part of good government.

In Indonesia, coastal environments should be of primary importance in the biosphere reserve program. It is tempting to propose a locked-gate management strategy in which all human activity is precluded, thus permitting nature to take its course; however, because the biosphere reserves will include coastal areas not free of man's influence or devoid of potential commercial value, they will fail to meet the criteria for island isolation.

Management strategy for coastal areas should be based on the principle that the natural range and scale of physical processes must remain unchecked within the biosphere reserves.

At the national and local (provincial and district) levels, the development of broad-scale resource and use policies is important -- including coast- and exclusive environmental zone -specific environmental legislation and economic incentives and disincentives.

Policies on human populations nationally may also need to be modified, and therefore birth control programs should be intensified up to the district level. These programs should be considered a major part of integrated coastal zone management in Indonesia.

The writer is professor in mangrove ecology at the Center for Oceanological Research and Development, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta.