Top-down vs Community-Based Management Approach: Finding The Most Suitable Implementation for Marine Protected Area in Indonesia
INTRODUCTION
Marine protected area is an essential instruments in marine biodiversity conservation. It has been applied by various institution and nation throughout the world to encounter several issue from fish stock collapse to habitat degradation (IEEP and NRDC, 2008). Marine protected area can act as a residence for certain species, habitat, and ecosystem as well as cultural heritage which cannot survive in other human intervened area. It can also act as the standard of how human should deal with nature.
Indonesia is one of the countries that have highest marine biodiversity in the world. With more than 2 million km2 of the sea coverage, the country have a large benefit from the marine natural resources. For a very long time, the utilization of natural resources in the sea, especially in the coastal area, has provide the needs of many local communities as well as people in a major cities throughout this country (MacAndrews, 1998). On the other hand, Indonesia is also suffer from several environmental threats such as marine habitat loss, coral reef degradation, and fish stock collapse as a consequences of several human activities such as over-exploitation, illegal fishing, and pollution (Sukardjo, 2002). For these reasons, marine protected areas in Indonesia has become an important role for protecting, preserving, and reducing the pressure to the natural biodiversity and cultural heritage. Nowadays, there are 296 marine protected areas covered in about 62,600 km2 which include Marine National Park, Marine Nature Tourism Park, Marine Sanctuary, Regional Marine Conservation Area, Strict Marine Reserve...
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...urce users in or surrounding area is actively involved and participated in decision-making and managing their natural resources in sustainable ways and local wisdom controls. They already have knowledge and experiences about their environment and surrounding much better than the government. The awareness to protect their ecosystem and maintain the sustainability of the natural resources might came from their own experiences as well as cultural wisdom which are very familiar for them for several generations. However, sometime this awareness could change for some reasons. There are other aspect such as socio-political and economical aspect that could turn the communities and resources users to terminate the establishment of marine protected area. A better approach and regulation might necessary to keep maintain the awareness and obedience of the related stakeholders.
The article titled Marine Parks by Bill Daly tries to look into various dimensions of the issues related to marine parks and tries to find the answers to them (Daly 1997). The main focus of the article is on the credentials of the marine parks related to various scientific and ethical issues. It is claimed that marine parks violate several social, economic, and ethical norms. They do not make any effective contribution either scientifically or ethically. Therefore, there is no need of keeping these parks open.
A statistic released by the Marine Science Education Project of the Indonesian Ministry of Higher Education States that “…Reefs subject to land-based pollution (sewage, sedimentation, and or industrial pollution) show 30–50% reduced diversity at 3 m, and 40–60% reduced diversity at 10 m depth relative to unpolluted comparison reefs in each region.” This statistic is alarming because it shows just how much pollution can affect a certain environment. Not only does it affect the environment but it also affects animals, plants and people.
According to the IBO, conservation is the sustainable usage of natural resources and preservation is the exclusion of human activity in places not yet infiltrated. One way to ensure the conservation of biodiversity is through habitat conservation. Designing protected areas allows the natural fauna and flora to flourish. However, questions such as these should be asked when creating a protected area: What’s the ideal shape for the reserve? Should the entire reserve be one or should there be separate areas? How close to human society should this reserve be?
...hrow off the balance of the ecosystem. Different marine biodiversity requires different types of ways to conserve them, some need government and some do not. Depending on the different types of technology of public goods supplied, there are different ways to and different methods to preserve the marine biodiversity. We have looked at the different types of externalities that are associated with impure public goods (in this case marine biodiversity). We also looked at the three types of technology of public good supplies and see why it affects marine biodiversity. Lastly, we have discussed the incentives to conserve marine biodiversity, both private solutions and public solutions. To put it briefly, “wildlife exploitation and conservation involves various costs and benefits, which should all be taken into account to achieve an optimal outcome.” (Bulte, 1)
These four studies evaluated the use of marine protected areas (MPAs) as the primary tool for conservation efforts. Within Fox’s study, he identified four components that increase an MPA’s effectiveness, all of which focus on bringing together the goals of the governing bodies involved, as well those of the locals who rely on the marine systems in question for resources. The research presented by Edgar and his team presents similar findings as they identify five factors that have shown to increase the success of MPAs after they studied 87 different MPA locations. In addition to identifying the key factors that contribute to MPA success, they also identify some factors that lead to MPA failure. Halpern’s study focuses on the limitations of MPA networks and the broader scope issues that need to also be addressed in order for MPAs to be truly effective.
(“Science Daily”). Illegal fishing, especially in marine protected areas is destroying the marine life around the reef. The article What are Marine Protected Areas, helped explain the topic. Marine protected areas are
Oceans are such so vast that people underestimate the impact their actions —seeming so insignificant— have on them. Humans have by and large taken the oceans for granted; not considering how important a healthy ocean is to our survival. A popular mind-set is that the oceans are a bottomless supply of fish, natural resources, and an infinite waste dump. There are myriad reasons why the oceans should be saved and the most obvious one is marine life. With 71% of the Earth being covered by water, it is obvious that sea creatures are predominant form of life, making up 80% of the species of life on Earth. However, as important as marine life is, that is not the only reason why saving the oceans is crucial. The ocean floor provides natural resources such as, oil, natural gas, petroleum, minerals, medications, and ingredients for foods and products. The economic benefits of the oceans are huge and significant, as well. Fishing and fish products have provided employment to 38 million people and have generated about $124 billion in economic benefits. However, oceans are on the verge of crisis, marine life, natural resources, transportation, the economy, and important ingredients are at risk due to overfishing, pollution, and acidification. Thus, in this essay I will argue that, oceans are not impervious to human activity and threatening the health of the ocean threatens the health of humanity, since oceans key to our survival.
Literature Review Recovery of Marine Animal Populations and Ecosystems: Lotze, Coll, Magera, Ward, Airoldi In a research article by Lotze, Coll, Magera, Ward and Airoldi (2011) they examine the positive side of how ecosystems in the ocean can recover even though they are faced with many different types of struggles every day. The authors ask the main question: How common is recovery among depleted populations and degraded ecosystems in the ocean? It is hypothesized that over the years, ecosystems are going to recover and essentially in the future, increase. The results in this study supported the hypothesis of the research on recovery for certain ecosystems and stated that 10-50% of ecosystems actually show some rate of progression (Lotze, 2011).
Some major issues with the current commercial fishing situation is sustainability, habitat degradation and species extinction which all can be monitored and have positive changes in the enforcement of Marine Protected Areas across the Japanese
Did you know that more than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct? According to Pandey, the author of Humans Pushing Marine Life toward ‘Major Extinction’, nearly 10,000 species go extinct each year, and this rate is estimated to be 1,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate (1). Human beings are causing irreversible damage to the oceans and their wildlife, which is being led by two major reasons: Commercial fishing or over-fishing, which damaged the marine environment and caused a loss in the marine life diversity, and pollution, which is a primary way of the extinction causes that drastically modifies the marine life habitat. As a result of the commercial fishing and pollution, many of the marine species will start disappearing of the oceans. Briggs emphasizes that over-fishing “has induced population collapses in many species. So instead of having less than a hundred species at risk, as was the case some 30-40 years ago, there are now a thousand or more (10).”
Dynamite fishing or blast fishing is known to have direct effects on marine biodiversity especially impacting the coral reef systems where this technique is frequently used. There are other methods destructive like blast or dynamite fishing such as cyanide fishing, both are used widely throughout the Indo-West Pacific Ocean mostly with countries found in SE Asia (Erdmann et al, 2000). These types of destructive fishing can be high risk to marine biodiversity; these techniques threaten too rigorously damage large percentages coral reefs. Additionally loss of coral cover, which reduces both fish abundance and diversity overtime and leading to possible effects at a larger ecosystem function level unless the coral regrowth is sufficient to compensate the loss (Saila, 1993). There are two main types of threats of fishing particularly to fragile systems such as coral reefs, but can additionally be affecting other marine systems. These are acute treats and chronic stress, acute threat is intense damage in a short period e.g. destructive fish practices, such as blast/cyanide fishing and including further forms of mechanical damage, like ship grounding, anchor damage. Acute threats cause substantial damage nevertheless; they species do persist and can generally recover if protected from further exploitation (Saila
(2) All the economically important organisms in protected areas should be identified and conserved as protected areas are an extremely important part of programs to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, mainly for sensitive habitats. (3) Species in critical habitats should be identified and safeguarded. (4) Priority should be given at its outmost level to preserve ecosystems which appear to be unique. (5) There should be sustainable utilisation of natural resources. (6) International trade in wild life should be prohibited and highly regulated. (7) The poaching and hunting of wildlife should be prevented as far as practicable. For example in Assam on horned rhinos are facing extinction on account of poachers trading them at an international level for monetary gains. (8) Care should be taken for the development and improvement of reserves and protected areas. (9) Efforts should be made to reduce the level of pollutants in the environment which causes an adverse
At present, of the 150,000 protected areas across the world, just 3% are in the oceans. As countries introduce measures to improve protection, it is important that the governments and the environmental agencies select sites for regulation.”(Schofield 834-836). This states that the government should improve their ways of assisting in care for the endangered species, but it is still quite expensive for them to do so. Well just how good are researchers doing in keeping up with all the
In this marine paper, I have discussed its significance, threats and conservational methods. I strongly believe that protection of coral reefs are key and should be understood as a means towards sustainable management and development of many small island nations such as Grenada and the world. Corals appear to be dying faster than normal and the trend is rapidly ascending. If that happens, then something inside of me will die too. The reef survives on partnership and the most important partners the corals have are you and I.
In conclusion, natural resources are required to complete the psychological need of human. Conservation and preservation of the natural resources is essential for maintaining its sustainability. Here the role of NGOs in maintaining our natural resources, such as implement awareness campaign, conserve and ensure the sustainable use of natural resources and emphasize the usage of eco-friendly equipment are the way or protective measures that can decrease the depletion of natural resources. As a community that care about our resources, we need to rethink before doing something that could deplete our natural resources and endangered environment. NGOs as well as society must work together to fulfil their responsibility to conserve, protect, and care for the natural resources for the next generation.