Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A new collaboration for Indonesia's small islands

2013; Wiley; Volume: 11; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1890/1540-9295-11.5.274

1540-9309

Susan L. Williams,

Echinoderm biology and ecology

A field trip to Indonesia's Spice Islands helps marine ecologist Susan Williams to appreciate how a business model could facilitate regional seagrass and coral reef habitat conservation. After heading west across the tropical blue waters of the Makassar Strait for about 45 minutes, our boat approached Barrang Lompo, an island in the Spermonde Archipelago of southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia. The small islands that compose the archipelago lie in parallel bands off the busy port of Makassar, along the historic spice trade trail. The area, which figured prominently in Alfred Russell Wallace's expeditions nearly two centuries earlier, supports the highest biodiversity of corals and seagrasses on Earth; it makes up part of the Coral Triangle, which extends from the Solomon Islands in the southeast, north through the Philippines, and west to Indonesia and Malaysia. I began to make out structures, arising mirage-like from the sea surface, where instead I expected to see a reef crest and a coralline sand beach. As we approached, the structures resolved into the homes and piers of the islanders. I had been told that the islands were eroding away because of rising sea levels and the loss of naturally protective seagrass beds and coral reefs, but I was not prepared for the sight before me –the local people had constructed a double seawall of dead coral to mitigate erosion. On this, my first field trip to the Spermonde Islands, I was joined by Indonesian colleagues from Universitas Hasanuddin (UNHAS, www.unhas.ac.id) and a team from Mars Symbioscience (Mars, www.marssustainablesolutions.com). UNHAS and Mars are partners in Mitra Bahari ("Sea Partnership", www.kmb-sulsel.net), a diverse collaboration comprising academic scientists, private businesses, the Indonesian Government, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs; eg Oxfam). Mitra Bahari is dedicated to helping achieve an important goal of Indonesia's Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries: coastal welfare and equity for small islands. One of Mitra Bahari's aims is to establish sustainable alternative livelihoods to the destructive "bomb" or "blast" fishing practices that damage the reefs and seagrass beds encircling the islands, as well as to promote and support research and pilot reef and seagrass restoration projects. Along with coral reefs, seagrass habitat is in global decline and little information is available from Indonesia, the hotspot for seagrass species diversity (Waycott et al. 2009). In addition to protecting shorelines from erosion, seagrasses provide critical habitat for the fish that are a staple of the local diet, as well as habitat for imperiled species, including seahorses (Hughes et al. 2009). A few days later, the need for viable alternative livelihoods to fishing became patently obvious to me as I collaborated with my colleague – Rohani Ambo-Rappe, an UNHAS faculty member – on her seagrass restoration experiment off one of the islands. Four young boys paddled up in a small boat to ask whether we'd seen any rabbitfish, which they were hunting. Neither of us had seen a single rabbitfish in the seagrass bed, where these herbivores should have been common; the only fish I saw that day were (inedible) shrimp gobies. Island parents later told us that the "good life" in terms of fishing ended in the 1960s. Now, they dream of being able to afford to send their children to a secondary school located on another island. I've worked in tropical marine environments and sea-grass ecosystems my entire career, but this experience was particularly enlightening. I finally grasped the importance of monetary incomes to ensure the persistence of seagrass and reef habitats. Like most ecologists, I'd embraced habitat protection and marine reserves as a conservation solution, especially given my experience that seagrass restoration rarely meets established goals. I'd seen the large and abundant fish, including top predators, while diving in Indonesia's spectacular marine protected areas (MPAs), and I accepted that some tourism resources from MPAs spill into local economies. MPAs are clearly critical elements of a conservation initiative, but it is commonly recognized that they encompass a relatively small chunk of the marine real estate and poaching is always an issue, even when fishermen are included as stakeholders in the MPA establishment process. But what about areas like the Spermondes, which are too degraded to attract MPA designation and ecotourism, let alone to support artisanal fishing? A different approach is needed to ensure the persistence of seagrass beds and coral reefs in such places. My views on restoration and conservation in the Coral Triangle were changed by the Mars team. Their business perspective was crystal clear: the only incentive to restore or conserve seagrass and coral reefs in the Spermondes is an economically viable income for the islanders. If islanders derive no tangible monetary benefit, progress toward protecting these habitats will never be self-perpetuating and will require sustained and sizeable expenditures by governments and NGOs. My academic approach of teaching islanders about the important linkages between fisheries production and habitat would not cut it alone. While I could now grasp this reality, I was uncomfortable with the specific alternative source of income to destructive fishing being developed by Mitra Bahari – seahorse culture for the aquarium trade (Figure 1). My discomfort stems from my own research on the environmental impacts of the trade, caused by the release of non-native invasive species from hobby aquariums and wholesale and retail outfits (Padilla and Williams 2004). Could the benefits to marine conservation of the supply side of the aquarium trade be reconciled with these negative ecological effects at the trade's "downstream" outlet? Susan Williams (right) and Rohani Ambo-Rappe at a seahorse culturing operation on Barrang Lompo, Spermonde Islands. Certainly there is potential for the creation of a sustainable aquarium trade as an alternative livelihood to destructive fishing. For example, in a Makassar fish market, reef fish were selling for under US$1 each, after being passed from fishermen through a chain of middlemen to vendors in the market. Compare this price to the online retail prices for aquarium fish in the US of tens to hundreds of dollars, depending on the species (Figure 2). I knew that seahorses were highly valued ornamental aquarium species, with over 30 000 individuals imported into California alone in 2009. The economic value of selling seahorses for aquariums was evidenced for one family in the Mitra Bahari project by the second story they were adding to their house, as their income jumped from around US$20 to US$200 a month. Palette or blue surgeonfish (Paracanthurus hepatus) at an aquarium exporter's facility on the island of Bali, Indonesia. From my ecological perspective, the key elements of the sustainable seahorse business model are CITES certifications and land-based culture of species. Island families raise successive generations of seahorses in what amounts to their backyards. The animals are then sold to exporters on the island of Bali, who ship them to European markets. The most experienced and reputable exporters are carefully selected as business associates. The success of the first seahorse culture operations provided a model for other families to follow, enabling them to abandon destructive reef fishing. Other island families not directly involved in seahorse culture operations receive income from building structures for field trials of cultured abalone and for reef restoration, and from recycling marine plastic debris. I began to see how a business model for conservation could work, even in the ornamental species trade. Education plays a crucial role in marine conservation in the Spermonde Islands, although not in the way I initially envisioned. I had to learn about the realities of conservation outside of Indonesia's lauded MPAs by witnessing firsthand the living conditions of the islanders and their limited access to education, to understand the necessity of providing alternative livelihoods, even if via the aquarium trade. I came to appreciate what businesses can bring to the conservation table. The universities I've served have encouraged me to become involved with business, but my previous forays were disappointing and I never received effective training for such engagement. This time around, Mars was receptive to my academic ecological perspective and critical in readjusting my rarefied idealistic view of how marine conservation should work in the Coral Triangle. Their global and local business experience was essential to the success of the seahorse model. These are important lessons for a privileged American academician, even one who often gets her fins wet. I will redouble my efforts here in the US to educate aquarium hobbyists not to dump their aquarium contents and release non-native ornamental species. If native habitats suffer harm from invasive aquarium species, it could lead to more regulation of the trade, potentially pinching off the supply side in Indonesia and other exporting countries where the income is critical. If the negative ecological effects of the marine ornamental trade are mitigated through education in the US, then culturing ornamental species could offer a truly sustainable alternative livelihood in the Coral Triangle. The trade that my colleagues and I characterized as having negative environmental impacts in the developed world might in fact help save the seagrass beds and reefs in this area, in addition to making a tangible contribution to the lives of people who directly depend on these habitats. I thank UNHAS and Mars for logistical support and my colleagues for exceptional hospitality. Funding was provided by Mars and a grant from the University Outreach and International Program at UC Davis.