Sarwono wants marine environment preserved

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja made a fresh call yesterday for greater efforts to preserve the coastal and marine environment.

Addressing the opening of a national meeting on the environment here, Sarwono said that the pollution and general destruction of coastal and marine resources has reached an alarming level.

"The seas are often treated as dumping grounds for cities, where industrial and domestic waste as well as chemical waste from the agricultural sector is dumped," he said.

He said mangrove forests are being destroyed rapidly, with only 2.6 million hectares now left. In 1982, there were 4.25 million hectares of mangrove forest in Indonesia.

Coral reefs are also suffering, he pointed out. Despite the rapid exploitation, however, coastal communities have yet to benefit from this development.

"The fishermen remain poor," he said, adding that another factor preventing local communities from enjoying the fruits of marine exploitation is that many foreign ships illegally fish in Indonesian waters.

The seas constitute two-third of the whole archipelagic area of 1,919,444 square kilometers, and the considerable marine resources are obviously of strategic value, he said.

Indonesia's 81,000 kilometers of coastline, which constitute 14 percent of the world's coasts, need protection, he argued. Indonesian seas cover an area of 5.8 million square kilometers.

Sarwono also said that the seas have vast untapped natural assets in the form of minerals and energy resources. "Thermal differences in the sea, for instance, can be manipulated to produce electricity and fresh water," he said. "We have yet to fully utilize these resources."

The meeting discussed programs for the management of the environment in various regions. Attended by environmental campaigners and organizations, regional administrators, private sectors and universities, the conference also discussed special programs such as clean-river campaigns. (16)