Jakarta (Greeners) – Colleagues of South Sulawesi Governor, Nurdin Abdullah, is allegedly involved in the sea sand mining project in Makassar. PT Boskalis International Indonesia has been running the Makassar New Port (MNP) project since February 13, 2020. The sand mining project was conducted in 1,428 hectares in Spermonde Waters, Kodingareng Lompo Island.

Several anglers and environmental activists who protested against these mining activities were arrested on Saturday (12/9/2020). South Sulawesi water and air police (Polairud) immediately apprehend seven anglers, three aspiring journalists, and an environmental activist after showing their disagreement with the project.

According to Merah Johansyah, National Coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), people from the South Sulawesi Governor’s circle might involve in the apprehension of the protesters.

‘Bee Team’ in the Sea Sand Mining Project

To investigate the issue, Jatam traces several documents from the Directorate General of General Legal Administration, Ministry of Law and Human Rights. They also trace the Environmental Impact Assessment document.

From their investigation, Jatam finds that among twelve businesses that run in Takalar Waters, two of them are PT Banteng Indonesia and PT Nugraha Indonesia Timur.

“People from South Sulawesi Governor’s circle owns these companies,” said Johansyah in an online media briefing “Kolega Gubernur Nurdin Abdullah di Balik Tambang Pasir di Perairan Takalar Sulsel,” or “Governor Nurdin Abdullah’s Colleagues Behind Sea Sand Mining in Takalar Waters South Sulawesi,” Wednesday (17/9).

Also read: On Earth Day, LIPI Optimizes Marine Ecosystem Research

PT Banteng Laut Indonesia is the concession owner where PT Boskalis International Indonesia mines. Its shareholders include Akbar Nugraha as President Director, Sunny Tanuwijaya as Commissioner, Abil Iksan as Director, Yoga Gumelar Wietdhianto, and Fahmi Islami.

Abil Iksan is also listed as a Director of the other company involved in the sea sand mining project, PT Nugraha Indonesia Timur. Along with Iksan, Akbar Nugraha as a Deputy Director, and Kendrik Wisan as a Commissioner in PT Nugraha Indonesia Timur.

“Akbar Nugraha, Abil Iksan, and Fahmi Islami, were part of the ‘Bee Team’. Bee Team is the campaign team to win Nurdin Abdullah and Andi Sudirman Sulaiman. PDI Perjuangan, PKS, and PAN promote the duo in the 2018 election,” adds Johansyah.

Sumber: Jaringan Advokasi Tambang (Jatam)

Anglers Demand Authorities to Stop Sea Sand Mining Activities

Some sea sand mining companies continue their operation despite the rejection of thousands of local anglers. Johansyah urges the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to freeze the permit of these mining businesses in the Takalar Waters.

“The termination of mining activities, as well as freezing and revoking all mining permits, is in line with the mandate of Law Number 27 of 2007, in conjunction with Law Number 1 of 2014 concerning Management of Coastal Areas and Small Islands. As the law mandated, the use of these areas is not for mining,” Johansyah argues.

Also read: LIPI: Indonesia’s Marine Potential Worth of US$124 Billion

Marine Spatial Planning Policies’ Impact

Commenting on the issue, Secretary-General of the People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), Susan Herawati, believes that the sand mining that occurred on Kodingareng Island was the impact of marine spatial planning policies.

Furthermore, this law is regulated in South Sulawesi Provincial Regulation Number 2 of 2019 concerning the Zoning Plan for Coastal Areas and Small Islands (RZWP3K) of South Sulawesi Province for 2019-2039.

“To accommodate the national strategic projects, South Sulawesi’s RZWP3K Regional Regulation allocates reclamation for MNP projects and sea sand mining,” she explains.

Susan regrets that Regional Regulation RZWP3K accommodates the needs of the sand mining companies located in Makassar. Moreover, Susan quotes The Indonesian Earthquake Hazard and Sources Map book published in 2017. The book notes that in the Makassar Strait, there are earthquake faults with a type of sea-rising defect.

“In other words, RZWP3K South Sulawesi does not consider the vulnerability of natural disasters in the Makassar Strait. Ironically, the area of sea sand mining has been allocated as much as 9,355.49 hectares,” she adds.

Severe Damage to Marine Biodiversity

According to KIARA Data and Information Center (2020), sea sand mining is massive. If the sea sand mining starts from February to August, PT Boskalis is estimated to have mined sand for approximately 200 days. With the vessel’s transport capacity of 35,500 m³ per day, the company has approximately been mining 21,300,000 m³ of sea sand. These are from the Spermonde Waters, especially those close to Kodingareng Lompo Island.

Commenting on the issue, Ahmad Fakar, Coordinator of the South Sulawesi Save the Coasts Alliance, asserts the biodiversity lost.

“12,300,000 m³ of sea sand is not a small amount. It is destroying the aquatic ecosystems that are home to fish, also the rich marine biodiversity. The long impact of this damage will be severe,” he concludes.

Writer: Dewi Purningsih

Editor: Ixora Devi

Jakarta (Greeners) – A senior scientists said that Indonesia Institute of Sciences, or LIPI, is currently developing sponge, sea cucumber, seaweed, and other marine organisms for cancer cure.

Based Basic Health Research of Ministry of Health, cancer prevalent has been increasing from 1.4 percent in 2013 to 1.8 percent in 2018.

However, only 80 percent of cancer cure medicines available are made of natural ingredients or synthetics since 1980s.

Ratih Pangestuti of Oceanography Research Center of LIPI, said that Indonesian waters have rich marine biodiversity, hence, the institute is committed to research and develop active ingredients from marine organisms as cancer cure, food resources to prevent cancer.

“Since 2004, we have developed marine biota such as sponge, seaweed, and sea cucumber for cancer cure. These marine organisms have bio-active chemicals that can be developed as candidates for cancer cure agents with curative ability to cure and prevent cancer,” said Pangestuti, in Jakarta, on Monday (04/02/2019).

READ ALSO: Indonesian Scientists Develops Antibiotics from the Country’s Rich Biodiversity 

Furthermore, she said that marine biota for cancer cure are sponge and sea cucumber, meanwhile seaweed can be used to prevent cancer which also can be used as food to improve body resilience and reduce risks for diseases, such as cancer.

“So, from marine biota we researched, active chemicals, including Lissoclinum patella, Oxycoryna fascicularis, Didemnum molle, Botryllus schlosseri, Spheciospongia inconstan, Melophlus sarasironum, Oceanapia amboinensis, Biemna sp, Axinella sp, Haliclona (Gellius) sp, and Lamellodysidea herbaceae, have potentials as cancer cure,” she said.

READ ALSO: Indonesia’s Drugs and Food Agency Support Herb Small Enterprises 

Currently, the development is still in pre-clinical tests. To support the research, LIPI is cooperating with Spanish pharmacy company, Pharma Mar.

“This marine biota based cancer cure is not marketable yet as it is still in pre clinical trials and it will require five to 10 years of research. Hence, to speed up this research, we need the support from local pharmacy, state-owned companies or government. From previous cases, there were agreements but failed due to unfitting clauses and couldn’t reach the middle way,” she said.

The research, she added, needs long time because it needs to follow the procedure, starting from ingredients preparation, extraction and active chemical identification. In addition, it needs to pass invitro activity tests using cancer culture cell, DNA, to pre-clinical and clinical invivo activity tests.

“The research requires lots of funding, so we are hoping for interested pharmacy companies of state-owned companies working together to develop this marine biota based cancer cure,” she said.

Reports by Dewi Purningsih

Jakarta (Greeners) – The finding of a finless porpoise in Kubu Raya waters, of Padang Tikar subdistrict, West Kalimantan province, had added the marine biodiversity importance to the area following the finding of Irrawaddy dolphin, or locally known as pesut by WWF-Indonesia since 2011.

Head of West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), Sustyo Iriyono, said that these findings worth to be proud of as it would make Kubu Raya as high conservation areas, marine and terrestrial.

From 88 cetaceans, 34 species is found in Indonesia of which three of them are found in Kubu Raya district with complete composition.

READ ALSO: No Accurate Information on Indonesia’s Marine Ecosystem, Scientist Says

Action plans to raise awareness and socialization on the marine mammals, said Iriyono, needs to done as they are protected under the 1990 Law on Conservation and the 1999 Presidential Regulation on Plants and Animals Preservation.

“People needs to protect and conserve the habitat so it can be named as Essential Ecosystem Area,” he added in a press release to Greeners, on Thursday (10/11).

Finless porpoise. Photos: West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA)

Meanwhile Albertus Tiju, Program Manager of West Kalimantan Chapter, WWF-Indonesia, said that Kubu Raya biodversity required comprehensive conservation efforts and WWF-Indonesia had declared it as high conservation areas, dubbed as Kubu Landscape, in 2015.

“Landscape based management is part of WWF-Indonesia strategy to create effective management,” Tiju said.

Furthermore, he said that the finding of finless porpoise had been confirmed through DNA test by West Kalimantan BKSDA, WWF-Indonesia, and Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center of Udayana University for the past seven months.

“DNA test on the finless porpoise found in Kubu Raya waters is very crucial considering lack of data on this species in the world,” he added.

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Finless porpoise is the smallest Cetacean with less than two meters long. Other Cetaceans are whale, dolphin, and Irrawaddy dolphin.

Porpoise, said Tiju, different from other Cetacean was shy and less acrobatic species, so rarely can be found in the surface, except for breathing, compare to its cousin, dolphin who was more interactive and loves to jump high so easy to spot.

Consequently, it’s researching porpoise is very hard to do with minimum interaction with humans. No other countries, including Indonesia, have documented the species thoroughly.

“For us, finding this species in Kubu Raya add more important information on finless porpoise’s existence in Indonesia,” he said adding that the finding will be reported to the 2nd Southeast Asian Marine Mammal Stranding Network Symposium – Workshop – Training.

Report by Danny Kosasih

Jakarta (Greeners) – Despite of being stipulated by the law, information on marine conservation and research in Indonesia are still difficult to get resulting to waste of time, energy, and money, said a senior scientist, in Jakarta, on Tuesday (21/6).

Iskandar Zulkarnaen, head of Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that lack of information had also resulted to the inability to produce accurate and proper policies in relation to marine conservation and research.

As a result, his institute has been collecting data on population and types of marine biodiversity in Indonesia which are still rare compare to terrestrial data. With current marine data, Zulkarnaen added, it would be difficult to monitor its biodiversity.

READ ALSO : Management of Seven National Marine Parks is Under Ministry of Environment and Forestry

“We still do not have accurate data on [marine] biodiversity and we are still concentrating on developing its data base. If the data was not gathered properly, we would not be able to see the trends of its growth or [monitor] the damages,” he said adding that they already have better data for coral reefs compare to other marine species.

One Map Policy

Agus Darmawan, Secretary of Marine Space Directorate General, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, said that there was little data on Indonesia’s marine biodiversity.

Darmawan said that National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), LIPI and other agencies have mapped out Indonesia Biodiversity for the next ten years but it is still collecting data.

“Currently, the government is encouraging for one map policy which aimed to be a single source to determine and produce policies. It is resulted from ministries and other agencies tend to issue different data of their own,” he said.

READ ALSO : UNEA-2 Supports Indonesia’s Sustainable Coral Reef Management

The data difference, said Darmawan, because of using different scientific approaches from different departments. There should be a national policy, he said, to determine the standard of scientific approach in relation to study Indonesia’s marine biodiversity.

“With one map policy, data from different departments and agencies will be concentrated and integrated. It would be easier then to collect data of marine biodiversity. We are currently discussing this at the ministry of marine affairs and fisheries,” he said.

Oceanography Research Center, under LIPI, has been appointed by Geospatial Information Agency, as the data guardian for Coral Reef and Seagrass Ecosystem.

“Current status for coral reef, between 1993 and 2015, is five percent in excellent condition, 27 percent in good condition, 37 percent in bad condition, and 31 percent in worst condition,” said Zulkarnain.

Reports by Danny Kosasih