Wanted! Seas and oceans dead or alive?

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta

"Wanted! Seas and Oceans -- Dead or Alive?" has been chosen by the United Nations Environment Programs (UNEP) as the theme of this year's World Environment Day, which is commemorated worldwide on June 5 each year.

"The message is simple. We have a choice: act now to save our marine resources, or watch as the rich diversity of life in our seas and oceans declines beyond the point of recovery," Klaus Toepfer, executive director of UNEP, said in his World Environment Day message.

Earth's seas and oceans remain largely a mystery. Sixty percent of the planet is covered by ocean more than a mile deep, the vast majority of which remains untapped.

Yet, our ignorance is not preventing our blind exploitation of what we are increasingly learning is a fragile and finite resource

In his message, the UNEP executive director says that more than 70 percent of the world's marine fisheries are now fished up to or beyond their sustainable limit. Across the world, diners are finding new species of fish on the menu as traditional fare becomes ever more scarce, while traditional fishing communities, who harvest half of the world's fish catch, are seeing their livelihoods increasingly threatened by illegal, unregulated or subsidized commercial fleets.

"At the same time, needlessly destructive fishing practices are killing hundreds of thousands of marine species each year and helping to destroy important undersea habitats," Toepfer says.

Another threat to marine life and human health and livelihood is pollution. Each year tons of discarded plastic products find their way into the oceans, killing hundreds of thousands of marine mammals, ocean-going birds and untold numbers of fish.

Also adding to the ocean's woes are surplus agricultural fertilizers which, when washed downstream, are creating a growing number of coastal dead zones.

These 'dead zones' are linked to an excess of nutrients, mainly nitrogen, that originate from agricultural fertilizers, vehicle and factory emissions and wastes. Low levels of oxygen in the water make it difficult for fish, oysters and other marine creatures to survive as well as important habitats such as sea grass beds.

Experts claim that the number and size of deoxygenated areas is on the rise with the total number detected rising every decade since the 1970s. They are warning that these areas are fast becoming major threats to fish stocks and thus to the people who depend upon fisheries for food and livelihoods.

The economic costs associated with these oxygen depleted areas is unknown, but predicted to be significant on a global scale. Some of the earliest recorded dead zones were in places like Chesapeake Bay in the United States, the Baltic Sea, the Kattegat, the Black Sea and the northern Adriatic Sea. Others have been reported in Scandinavian fjords.

The most well known area of depleted oxygen is in the Gulf of Mexico. Its occurrence is directly linked to nutrients or fertilizers brought to the Gulf by the Mississippi River. Others have been appearing off South America, China, Japan, south east Australia and New Zealand.

However, there is concern that more oxygen starved areas will emerge in coastal waters off parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa as industrialization and more intensive agriculture increase the discharge of nutrients.

Indonesia's marine life has also been severely damaged. Based on the latest government data, at least 57.6 percent of the total 9.2 million hectares of mangrove forest in this country has been damaged due to conversion into industrial sites, residential areas and fishponds.

Government data from 2003 also indicates that nearly 70 percent of coral reefs in Indonesia, which has 17,000 islands, are in poor condition due to fish bombing and poisoning, and waste disposal.

Mangroves and coral reefs are home to many types of fish. Without mangroves and coral reefs, fish would be unable to reproduce.

"The depletion of the coral reefs and mangroves are the two main sea problems we have been facing for years and which we will continue to face in the coming years," Sudarijono, deputy of environmental protection to the state minister for the environment, said.

"Our programs to rehabilitate mangroves and coral reefs are simply not enough, thus we need everyone's awareness and assistance to conserve them," he said.

The government has conducted small-scale mangrove replanting programs in several mangrove areas in South Sulawesi, East Java and Bali.

"Those areas are good examples of mangrove conservation management, as we and the local people replant the mangroves, which later are protected by locals," he said.

A workshop on coastal management in October last year agreed that mangrove conservation in Sulawesi (Muna, Luwu, Kwandang and Lariang) had been well managed by local stakeholders, with fishponds being kept limited in their scope.

For coral reef conservation from 1996 to 2003, the government has carried out a community-based coral reef conservation and small island development programs in Padaido, Biak, Papua. It has also been involved in coral reef conservation management based on a multistakeholder model on Derawan island (East Kalimantan), in Karangasem (Bali) and in Gili Terawangan (Lombok), as well as the development of the landscape of Nusa Ceningan island (Bali).

The programs basically consist of the formulation of participatory coral maps, zoning, monitoring and management agreements.

Another program is the 15-year Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program (COREMAP), which is run by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) with support from foreign donors, including the World Bank.

The COREMAP program includes efforts to improve law enforcement to protect coral reefs, establish coral reef monitoring and information systems to conduct research on the status of reefs and more effectively disseminate that information to stakeholder groups, and to develop community-based management systems and increase public participation in coral reef resource management.

Papua, Riau, South Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) are among the nine designated provinces where COREMAP has been implemented.

Sudarijono also said the government would continue its efforts to increase the awareness of the people of the importance of conserving the seas.

Yatna Supriatna of Conservancy International (CI) Indonesia said the government conservation programs were not enough.

"People need explanations about the conservation of the sea and sustainable practices to conserve and exploit the sea. With widespread education, people will understand how to exploit the sea in a sustainable manner.

"This effort should be jointly conducted by the government, local governments and non-governmental organizations," he said

He said, for example, that fishermen needed to know that fish bombing and poisoning might be effective ways to catch fish, but that at the same time these methods destroyed the coral reefs, which are the home of the fish.

Regarding mangrove conservation, fishermen should be given the knowledge that their fishponds will be more productive if the mangroves still existed, he said.

He also called on the government to set up a large-scale sea conservation area instead of the present small-scale area to help better protect the sea.

The government alone is certainly not able to accomplish these things on its own. Without the active support of all sectors of society, none of these environmental programs will succeed. Dead or alive? It is our choice.