Human Interaction with Coral Reefs

The Indonesian coastal zone supports approximately 60% of Indonesia's 182 million people. In some areas, local people are heavily dependent on a wide variety of reef and reef-associated animal for home consumption and trade, including turtles, fish, molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms.

The benefits of Indonesian people get from the reef are various, such as mention here:

	Reefs have traditionally served as sources of building materials
	Sand extracted from reefs serves as a fill material and is widely used in cement mixes
	Giant clam shells also used for processing into floor tiles.
	Reefs provide food supply for Indonesian people
	Many of reef fishes, marine mollusks (clams), echinoderms, and crustaceans are collected, and their rich-nutrition meats served as food resources.
	Shells of marine mollusks also collected for goods.
	Beside as food resources, some of reef creatures are sale as ornamentals for marine aquarium
	Reef fishes, giant clams, corals, and anemones are among the examples of marine products that encounter the international market.

Anthropogenic Threats

The main causes of reef destruction and damage appear to be destructive fishing, coral mining, and sedimentation.

	Destructive fishing methods include the reef bombing using dynamite, reef poisoning with cyanide, muro-ami, and fish trap. Reef bombing by dynamite is known as common practices throughout Indonesian seas. Cyanide is often used to catch ornamental fishes in many areas of Indonesia.
	Boating activity from fishermen and sports cause damage by dragging nets over reefs, walking on the coral, poling their boat and anchoring on corals.
	Reef-related tourism is becoming increasingly important in Indonesia. Development of tourist facilities has led to reef damage as a result of bad planning. Construction of commercial and recreational facilities, such as jetties, sea wall defences and tourist resorts alter current patterns and sediment distribution. Tourists can also damage the corals with their fins while doing snorkeling, or diving, and also while walking on coastal zone or reef flat

Coral Reef Management

The development of coral reef management as part of ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management) in Indonesia, are facing challenges due to the lack of financial capital, technology, and human resources. Coastal zone management issues in Indonesia are very similar from ASEAN countries, and some of the issues are very critical, such as mention here:

	The degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reef ecosystem.
	The pollution of marine and coastal environments.
	Overexploitation of marine and coastal resources, and widespread illegal extraction of marine resources.
	Relatively small progress towards the development of national strategy of ICZM and the maintenance of marine biodiversity. Those problem issues were happened caused by the conditions of management in Indonesia, which could be determined such as: The lack of coordinated development planning between national and provincial governments agencies and departments. Poor enforcement of existing regulations related to marine and coastal resources uses.

Lesson Learned

A community-based sanctuary was formally established by village ordinance in Blongko, North Sulawesi, in October 1998, after a one-year process of participatory planning, which is facilitated by Proyek Pesisir-Nature Resource Management (NRM) Jakarta Office. This marine sanctuary were encompass 10 ha area. Preliminary result showed, there was an increasing of fishes abundance after one year in this marine sanctuary, and also increasing of total live hard coral cover percentage. However the long-term result will show more clear conclusion and will determined whether this marine sanctuary could succesfully conserve the ecosystem as well as satisfied the need of local community, or failed. The most important thing is that the local community has full access and full contribution in the planning, developing, and managing the marine sanctuary. They will take responsible for their own nature resources and the future that lay on its.

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