Southeast Asian Coral Reefs - Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia has 2,915,000 square kilometers of marine area. The reef area is 51,020 square kilometers. Of that amount, 82% of it is at risk. Indonesia holds 17% of the world's total coral reef areas. Blast fishing, which has been illegal since 1985 still goes on today, along with cyanide fishing (1995). Another factor that is hurting the coral reefs in Indonesia is the amount of coral that they export. They are the world's largest exporter of corals, exporting about 500 tons of coral per year.

COREMAP is helping Indonesia with their destruction of corals by working in 9 of the 32 provinces. They want to:

1. Heighten law enforcement to protect coral reefs;
2. Establish coral reef monitoring and information systems, in order to conduct research on the status of coral reefs and more effectively disseminate that information to stakeholder groups;
3. Develop community-based management systems and increase public participation in coral reef resource management;
4. Increase institutional capacity and strengthen inter-institutional coordination in planning and implementing policy that affects coral reef management, and;
5. Enhance public knowledge of the importance of coral reef and motivate people to actively participate in the management and sustainable use of coral reefs.