Thought that maybe I'd get this off to a fresh, untainted start...
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Last week I embarked to the regional province of Pulau Seribu (1000 Islands) to observe established and new attempts at in-situ coral mariculture, both for profit and also for rehabilitation/transplantation. To reach Pulau Seribu, and more specifically the island of Pulau Panggang, we had to fly from Bali to Jakarta, and then take a boat 2.5 hours north east. A faster boat probably could have reached the island in an hour, but we took the traditional and crowded diesal chugging commuter/supply boat. My trip coincided with a MAC workshop sponsored by the regional government. This is the first time that the government has paid to bring MAC out to conduct training, which suggests to me that perhaps the government was finally taking notice and approving of MACs contribution to the local economy of ornamental fishermen. Because the government was paying for our trip, they put us up in the only "villas" on the neighboring Island of Pramuka. They provided a buffet for every meal as well. A matress on the floor, toilet, and A/C after 6 pm, posh posh.
After dropping off our bags at our rooms we were shuttled by boat the 1km distance to the island of Panggang where all of the fishemen live. After arriving in Panggang, we walked to the village's "town hall", where 68 (essentially all of them) of the island's fishermen had gathered along with members of the local government and Pulau Seribu National Park staff. The governemnt had provided box meals for everyone present. Many of the organizers were wearing shirts that had pictures of ornamental fish with the caption "Give us a chance to live longer". I wasn't sure if this referred to the fish being collected, the fishermen, or both? I was also perplexed as to why this caption was in English (So you could read it Colin, so you could read it...). As all 60+ fishermen gathered in the room, one of the important government types gave an appreciative but serious introduction. He apparently introduced me as a "buyer" from the USA to the fishermen. The fishermen all seemed very enthusiastic to be present (the free food probably helped too), and listened intently to the speakers. Even I was a bit surprised at this enthusiam. The teaching is very basic. It seems to be at about a 5 or 6th grade level. It appears that MAC goes out of their way to make the teaching interactive and to avoid talking "down" to them.
Some short film clips MAC displayed on a projector of fishermen here in Pulau Seribu taken maybe 6 months ago or so really opened my eyes wide to what is really going on. Some of these clips showed how the fishermen don't use fins or snorkels, but rather just walk across the corals, stepping on Montipora capricornis and tabling Acroporas, but conciously avoiding the sharper Seriatopora and Diadema urchin spines. Cyanide use, it seems, is really just one small part of a larger problem. So much is made of the cyanide issue, it seems that a lot of the more basic issues being tackled by MAC are easily overlooked. The fact that a man whose adult life has been spent collecting ornamental fish doesn't even know how to swim with fins and snorkel quite surprised me. Another clip showed "swimming lessons" where these fishermen flopped around in the water trying to do their best at swim fin-propulsion and coordinated snorkel-breathing. I can only imagine what sort of efficiency is gained when the fisherman no longer has to pull his head up out of the water to breathe when he is after a fast moving fish. When we came to Pulau Seribu, we brought along with us several boxes of masks, fins, snorkels, and netting. From what I understand, these sets will be offered to the fishermen for about $20 total which the fisherman can then pay off little by little each month. When I was out on a boat going to see a coral propagation site, it was hard to miss a fisherman who was wearing a makeshift lifejacket to help him float, as he was still learning to use his fins and snorkel. Still another film clip showed a fisherman at the end of the day separating his "ornamental catch" from his "grouper feed" baitfish using only his hand to scoop them up from the bucket, with the fish occastionally flopping around the ground when they hopped out of his hand. Still another clip showed a supplier carelessly tossing plastic bags of fish into the back of a pickup truck to be left uncovered in the mid-day sun. I asked if any of these videos had made available to public viewing, perhaps on the MAC website or at a conference or something, and I was dissappointed that the answer was 'no'. I think that most people would never believe this stuff without seeing it with their own eyes. I certainly wouldn't have thought about it. And I did not get the impression that these were films of "worst case scenarios", but in fact candid videos of everyday procedure, as was evidenced by the giggles let loose by the fishermen when they recognized someone from the clips.
Several weeks earlier MAC had brought in a Filino trainer to teach fishing techniques alternative to cyanide use. The fishermen had perviously been in disbelief that mandarins, comets, eels, and angels could be caught without cyanide. However, with the trainer's techniques of using small spear guns to spear mandarins though the dorsal fin, bamboo traps for comets, 'nooses' for eels, and barrier nets for angels, the fishermen were readily impressed. From what I gather, in a nutshell, cyanide is no longer a cheap commodity, at least in Indonesia. Originally it was cheap enough that the exporters or suppliers would give cyanide for free to the fishermen who supplied them. I would imagine that when a fishermen gets his cyanide for free he is likely to use it far too liberally (afterall he didn't have to pay for it), and I'm sure that fish and reef health was considerably affected negatively. However, in recent times with the increasing price of cyanide, the free-cyanide gravy-train ended, forcing the fishermen to buy it on their own. I can imagine that this would have caused the fishermen to be a lot more selective and careful about which species they used it for, and how much cyanide they used per fish. In Pulau Seribu, this came down to mandarins, comets, eels, and angels. One of the Indonesian MAC staff had observed fishermen using cyanide to collect mandarinfish and related me the economics. Half a kilo of Cyanide costs $3, and with it the fisherman might collect $5 worth of fish, leaving him with only $2 of profit. Therefore, by teaching these alternative net-collection techniques the fisherman are learning ways to make more money TODAY (something that is probably more readily understandable to them than the longterm benefits of healthier reefs for tomorrow.). This new training and insight was so convicing to the fishermen as a group, that they are now very interested in this whole MAC certification business. After 2 years of working in Pulau Seribu it seems like fruits are coming to bear.
I was unaware that when MAC gives certification to fishermen, it is done as collective effort. All of the local fishermen and suppiers are certified as a whole. This seems to be a logical decision, as it encourages a tight-knit fishing community that looks out for each other. In theory, one bad apple using cyanide or unsustainable fishing techniques threatens the certification of everyone else. So I imagine this causes people to look out for each other and keep their eyes open. This also hopefully encourages the fishermen to establish fair prices for their fish as a whole, rather than trying to undercut each other's already meager gains. This seems to be a topic of concern with regard to Pulau Seribu's mandarinfish. From what I gather Seribu is considered by the Jakarta exporters to have the highest quality and most colorful blue mandarins. Therefore, some sort of community concensus to get a more fair price for these fish seems to be in order.
Apparently the wounds from the small spear gun heal in 2-3 days. Indeed, all of the mandarins I saw at the supplier facility were either already healed, or well on their way. I don't think that these wounds would be obvious to a buyer once they reach retail stores abroad. These mandarins all seemed 100% healthy despite the intrusive method of capture.
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On our second day in Pulau Seribu we started the day by being invited to the local govenment's offices to meet the regional governor. In the lobby they had perhaps a 90 gallon saltwater fishtank showcasing the locally-grown aquacultured corals...All of which were a lovely shade of bright white. Perhaps they put them in the tank a week or so ago in anticipation of our arrival, and this was the result. We waited in a meeting room for nearly an hour before the governor finally arrived. He seemed very serious, but seemed to make everyone laugh at least once every 1-2 minutes (I suppose that that laughing at any attempt at humor is what you are supposed to do in the presence of a dominant governing figure). Of course I don't understand enough Indonesian to follow along... I felt a bit underdressed in my "Dark Side of the Moon" board shorts (On sale at Target for only 8.95 ;-)), when everyone else was wearing long pants. Gayatri covered for me by telling him that I was a fish collector from the USA (I was), and clearly fish collectors here would never be expected of such formal dress...Also I am from the USA, so that probably buys me a lot of disgression outside of normal custom here. The governor did speak English, so he and I were able to talk about what I had hoped to accomplish here in Pulau Seribu and in Indonesia. He stressed that he would like to introduce as many alternative means of income as possible for his people, while conserving the coral reefs. According to the other folks I asked afterwards, he seems to be genuine in his concern, having recently built a small hospital and other civic improvements on the islands.
After the meeting, Gayatri and I were taken out to a coral propagation site. It is located nearly 1 km offshore of Pulau Panggang on the edge of a shallow reef flat before it slopes sharply to about 10-12 meters. The coral growth along the upper slope and on the flat is pretty impressive, and for the most part healthy, although the occasional crown-of-thorns starfish and perhaps 10% mild-moderate coral bleaching are apparent. The coral community was dominated by Acroporas and foliose Montipora colonies. What was most interesting about this site, and as I would later find out, the rest of the surrounding reefs, was that the corals are almost all uniformly brown and lacking in bright pigmentation. This clearly presents a problem for sourcing desireable broodstock for coral culturing. Even the corals that they had under culture were much less colorful than the corals I had seen at Serangan in Bali. Why this is I can't be sure. I can speculate that the increased turbidity of the water due to the close proximity to Panggang might be factor. Brightly pigmented SPS seem to come from clear, shallow water. Perhaps the turbidity reduces light levels that one might encounter on a pristine reef at 5m or 10m (hard to know without actually doing a measurement). Anyway, this is pure speculation on my part, but the lack of color is confounding.
At this one site there must have been close to 100 tables in total. The tables were constructed of PVC pipe with two cross bars for support. Fish netting was stretched over the tables to hold the cement bases. The tables don't appear to be anchored to the bottom, unlike Serangan. In many cases the tables have been placed overtop of other wild coral colonies. The result being that a fast-growing coral (like A. millepora) will end up growing right through and encrusting the netting. This obviously ruins the table for future use, so it seems like a good angle to take when instructing proper table placement is "Don't put your tables over wild coral colonies as they will encrust your tables making them useless, and costing you money", rather than "Don't put the tables over wild corals because it can destroy the natural coral reef...". This is clearly an issue that needs addressing in a MAM standard for coral aquaculture. The frag bases are cement and seem acceptable in size and shape for retail sale. The corals are attached to the concrete bases with concrete, as opposed to epoxy or "bondo" as seen at Serangan. The plugs are attached to the netting with string, and for the most part stay upright. The low current and wave action here doesn't seem to require stronger attachment methods. I don't like the netting as much as the metal tables I saw at Sarangan, as they have a tendancy to sag a bit which causes the coral piece to more easily tip over.
Broodstock colonies are kept on separate tables about 75 meters away, and are attached to much larger (6"x6") slabs of concrete. Many of these broodstock colonies are quite large, and I didn't see any evidence of recent pruning from them. In fact most of the F1 corals were far too large to sell or ship efficiently and in need of severe pruning. The Seriatopora colonies seem to be quite undesireable from this location. I think that the low wave action results in needle-sharp, wiry branches that don't look very sightly. Furthermore, once the colonies get past a certain size, macroalgae seems to overgrow the inner branches. The Caulastrea that I saw here was nearly all bleaching to some extant. I don't see any wild Caulsastrea in the vicinity, and from my experience studying this species at Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier reef, it prefers deeper water than the reef crest. The bleaching is no doubt due to light stress. Torch Euphyllia (E. glabrescens) was likewise an unflattering drab brown.
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Today I was taken diving courtesy of the Pulau Seribu National Park. Apparently 40% of the waters here are encompassed by the National Park, and last year the wild harvest of corals was banned in the rest of the waters. Enforcement of rules within the park I'm sure is a major issue. I was taken to 2 different sites. The first was to see the area's soft coral growth. It was about 1.5 km west of Panggang and just off a reef slope not too dissimiliar to what I saw yesterday snorkelling. Average depth of about 15 m. I did see plenty of Sarcophyton and Alcynium (colt coral), but the majority of what I saw was hard coral. Of note at this site were some exceptionally bright orange, orange/white, and orange/white/blue zoanthids that covered large sections of coral rubble. There was also a type of Clavularia that was very common and seemed to fluoresce lightly orange (and some green). Visibility was quite low and turbid at no more than 4 m.
The second dive was to the East of Panggang in a "marine protected area". This MPA measures in total only 300mx300m, but the rule of no-fishing or collection is apparently well observed. This site was located about 150 m oceanside of a large grouper/fish rearing facility (upstream of the fish poop). This was also the site of the National Park's coral transplantation/rehabilitation effort. They were using large 12" square cement slabs that have a piece of 6" PVC pipe sticking out. The coral frags are attached only with plastic cable ties. I don't think that this method seems to be the most efficient method of attachment, as even frags that were growing for several months had yet to really attach themselves down to the base. The current was quite strong here, so we just drifted along the reef slope at about 10 meters. Large monospecific stands of scrolled cream/brown Montipora capricornis dominated for most of the dive, and then towrds the end of the dive, similiarly foliacious Pavona cactus coral dominated the slope. Nothing stuck out on this dive except for one bright, red M. Capricornis amongst a sea of brown. At the end of the dive we surfaced under a fish growout net, part of a floating network of these square net-pens that extended out from the adjacent small island dedicated entirely to grouper and foodfish growout. The government sells the culturists grouper fry that they they raise to maturity in these growout pens. However, in these particular pens that we surfaced alongside, I only saw a scant assortment of ornamental fish, 2 small black-tip reef sharks, and a few wild-caught food-fish being grownout to a larger size. In a smaller net-pen within the pen there were about 150 4-5" grouper that eagerly ate pelleted food. In a floating laundary basket were 10 baby hawksbill turtles swimming somewhat languidly, only 1 month old. Apparently the National Park has a sea turtle hatching propgram. At one month of age, some of the turtles are released back into the wild. And some, like these, are given to the locals to continue to feed and take care of until one year of age. I'm not sure if they get paid for doing this or what, but the turtles' "owner" showed me the government "contract" that proved that he was the legal guardian of them.
That night I had a good long chat with an Indonesian filmmaker/environmental activist about some of the issues plaguing Indonesia's environment. I was most fascinated but his recent work with the illegal logging of West Papua (Irian Jaya) (also home the world's largest strip mine, owned by the Freeport Mining Company of the good ole USA. What was once a large mountain is now a huge deep crater). Apparently 600,000 cubic meters of timber is illegal harvested by Chinese companies every month. West Papua is the last stand of virgin forest in Indonesia, as illegal logging has already stripped Sumatra, Kalamantan, etc. The Chinese pay off the Indonesian military who set up guarded quadrangles of forest while the clearing takes place. Another environmental disaster of late here in Indonesia has been a constant flow of hot mud that is oozing out of the ground in Java at a rate of up to 50,000 cubic meters per day since JUNE. It has plowed over houses, killed people, contaminated groundwater and the air with hydrogen sulfide, and in general been a huge, terrible disaster. And it was all caused by an error on the part of a BP-sponsored oil exploration well. Another environmental disaster is the relase of mercury into the rivers by mining companies resulting in entire villages of children severly mercury poisoned, bleeding from all orifaces of their bodies and incurring severe neurological damage/retardation. Ah, the plight of the developing nation, exploited at any cost (just so long as you are paying off the right guy). I'm sure that that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Today I went out with a local coral farmer to search for better and more colorful broodstock colonies than I had seen growing around Pulau Seribu. We left by boat and traveled about 45 minutes to the north west of Pulau Panggang to where "The more colorful corals live". The first site was about 75 m from the shore of a small uninhabitated island. The snorkelling here, as at the next site, was fantastic. The coral coverage was exceptional. Starting from the shore out to about 60 meters was mostly macroalgae; caulerpa and halimeda. Then coral dominated along the shallow (1m) reef crest for about 15 m before dropping off sharply into maybe 7 m of water. Coral coverage was heavy until about 3 meters of depth when the slope became largely littered with coral fragments, rubble, and sand. 75% of the coral coverage was Acropora, mostly A. Millepora (tabling), A. formosa (staghorn), A. florida (smaller branches off big thick branches), and A. Humilis (thick stubby branches). Also massive Porites heads and foliose Montipora with a smattering of Hydnophora, Lobophyllia, Euphyllia glabrescens, and Fungia. This was clearly an archetypal shallow water coral community. The water quality was significantly improved over Panggang. Maybe 7 m with little floc in the water column. Lots of Diadema urchins to make me suck in my belly as I cruised over them in the shallow water. I saw much less bleaching here than I have seen elsewhere.
One of the collectors swam with a laundary basket outfitted with styrofoam and a nylon cord attached. Another used a flat-head screwdiver, minus the plastic "grip", to break off branches of corals deemed worthy of culturing. Usually this consisted of about 1/10 of the whole colony or a piece about the size of your hand. These fragments were then placed in the basket, and along we went. Most of the species collected corresponded to their abundance. Blue, light pink, red-pink, purple, green, and an interesting grey color of A. millepora were collected. Also bright green A. Florida with orange tips, blue tipped A. formosa, bright blue A. humilis, bright green Hydnophora (even Hydnophora near Panggang is brown!), and several nice blue and purple porites and montipora colonies were collected. Of all the corals that I had seen under propagation in Penggang, these were by far the brightest, so I had thought that these additions would help out....
The second Island we snorkelled at was only another 5 minutes away and was quite similiar by all accounts as the first. They collected another laundary basket of corals from here as well. The corals were placed in an 2 export-size styrofoam boxes filled with sea water.
When we finally got back to Panggang, it became clear to me that these collectors were not at all prepared to do something productive with these fragments now that they had collected them. They seemed to be content to just put them on the seafloor and go get lunch and deal with them tomorrow. However through my prodding, we compromised, got lunch and then headed back out on the boat to the propagation site. When we arrived at the site, one of the men who seemed to be in charge took over the task of breaking the fragments that we had harvested into 3-4" pieces of just a few branches using snipping pliers. Once this was done it became clear to me that there was definately not enough broodstock bases to go around for all the coral that we had collected. This was clearly why he had suddenly lost interest in many nice, large pieces of coral fragments still left in the bottom of the styrofoam box. Sigh. So in all, only 2 tables were available with 16 bases on each table. We had harvested enough coral to make more than twice as many broodstock colonies. I tried several times to request that once he had used as many pieces as he could, to give me what was left such that I could swim it over to the shallow coral rubble area and scatter it around in hopes that some would take hold and grow. However, while I was in the water observing the attachment process with wet cement, these extra pieces were simply dumped over the side in about 10 meters of water where the chance of survival was next to zero. I was considerablly irritated by this wasteful carelessness. I was also dissappointed to see that the corals that this fellow had growing were clearly identical to the new ones that we had just harvested. I hadn't seen his particular site before, so I wasn't aware of this until now. However, even though I could see that they were the same morphs, it was clear that they had gone about 2 shades more pale. From fluorescent to pastel. So there is definately something about this area near Panggang that results in less colorful coral. In total we introduced maybe 1 or 2 new corals to his broodstock. I was also peeved at the lack of concern shown for a large crown-of-thorns starfish sitting just below several tables. Sigh. I naively tried to move it myself, and was quickly reminded that these stars are not only spikey (but they look so plastic...), they are venomous. Ouch. You only make that mistake once.
For the past several days while I have been out tramping around, the Indonesian MAC staffers have been giving both in the water training during the day (traingin all the while still being able to catch fish), and then classroom training in the evening. The formal "government sponsored" workshop ended today, so for the next two nights I will be staying in the home of one of the fishermen in Panggang.
Walking through Penggang is quite an eye-opening experience in itself. About 4000 people call this 9 hectare island home. Houses are cramped onto small lots with tiny or non-existant yards. Everyday leaves and trash are swept up from the yards and burned, leaving a very tidy, albeit hard dirt yard. I would imagine that if people composted their leaves and table scraps some good nutrients and fertilizer could be recycled to the soil. But then again there is practically no gardening of any kind that I can see; there just isn't enough space. As such, fresh fruit and vegetables are scarce and in high demand. Outside of the personal property, trash is abundant and pervasive. The shoreline is a colorful mess of ramen noodle packets, plastic bags, plastic bottles, etc, etc. Greywater drains from the homes into gutters along all the small paved "streets". The smells of urine, hydrogen sulfide, burning rubbish, and dead fish mix together to make a wonderful aroma of general filth. I suppose that you just get used to it after a while. Children are everywhere on the island. I estimate that 1/4-1/3 of the population is under the age of 12 (of course they would be the most visible segment of the population). Most of the older teenagers leave the island for better opportunity in Jakarta. I am quite a spectacle here in this small town. Tourists are non-existant here, so the prescence of white skin makes for stares from older folks and giggling from younger ones. 8-12 year old girls are particularly impressed. I might as well be in a Boy Band. Well not quite, but almost...
At the house were I am staying there isn't even a hole to poop in. If you have to do that, you must walk out to the docks and do so over the water. Bathing is done with the brackish water from the well and a bucket. However, the house does have a modern TV. Indonesian soap operas (actually sponsored by soap companies) and pop singing/dancing variety shows are very popular. The people on TV are very glamorous and urban of course. Bits of English are thrown into commercials to make them 'hip'. Lots of junkfood commercials for sweets that "give you energy" showing futuristic astro-kids travelling through technicolor worm-holes complete with jet packs. Not too different from the USA I s'pose. Most people seem to have cell phones that are much more modern than the one that I carry back in the US. It is an amazing mish-mash of high technology in the developing world.
The clear majority of residents are devout Muslims; most girls wear head coverings and several times a day over the town's loadspeakers prayers are chanted. Prayer takes place 5 times a day. Alcohol as far as I can tell is practically non-existant on the island. Despite the devout religion, I don't at all get the impression that it is at all remotely "fundamentalist", it's the just the way things are. Furthermore, I haven't at all run into any anti-Americanism yet. I have asked a few Indonesians about what they think of Americans and most still like Americans along with our movies, music, pop culture, etc. I think that many don't have much of an opinion or give much thought to the world at large outside of their own daily lives.
The children and the MAC staff sleep on the hard floor. I sleep on a large mattress that probably sleeps the 3 daughters. There is plenty of room for the other Indonesian MAC staff on this hug mattress, but they choose the floor. Maybe they feel uncomfortable sharing the mattress with me, maybe I smell. I insist that I shouldn't be the only one sleeping on the large mattress, but in the end I am the only one that sleeps there.
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This morning we set out to see some of the more established coral aquaculture sites. These are sites that are sponsored by some of the larger coral exporters in Jakarta. This site is located about 75 m offshore of Pulau Pramuka (The 1st island we stayed on) in a depth of about 2 m over mostly dead coral rubble. The water is pretty turbid (maybe 3m horizontal vis) and I don't think that there is much wave action, but probably gets pretty decent current during tide changes. This site turned out to be very large. In all there were about 300 tables belonging to 4 exporters. One of the exporters produces about 300 corals a week for sale here. The tables were the most organized and professional looking of any that I had seen while in Pulau Seribu. Species selection was impressive. Still mostly Acropora and SPS, but also a decent variety of Heliopora, Echinopora, Pectinia, etc. The colors are pretty good also, but again I think that there is something about this area that causes them to be a bit more pale than they could be under optimum conditions. Broodstock selection was large and healthy, and F1 corals were already broodstock size for most species. I am still perplexed at the lack of observable evidence of "fresh" pruning that I would expect to see in a well managed coral farm... Indonesian/CITES approved tags were used on the colonies. On each tag a number registers the region in Indonesia where they are grown, the company that owns them, and the broodstock designation. The generation is noted (i.e. F1) A code is also given for the species, and a specific number is given to the exact fragment (i.e. Acmp 10018 = Acropora millepora colony # 18). These plastic tags are attached to the base and are usually well covered over with coralline algae.
Most of the tables were contructed of PVC pipe filled with cement and netting strung between the frame. Circular rings of perhaps 2" PVC were stitched onto this netting to act as the "holder" for the cement plugs that were made in an identical sized mold. For the most part it seems like these holders worked well, although tipped over colonies were still too common for me to consider them a "successful" method of attachment. Very little wild coral was obstructed by the placement of these tables. Unlike Serangan, the tables were not firmly anchored to the sea floor. One of the companies constructed their tables from metal, but still used netting in between. It seems that rust corrosion is going to be an issue in another year or so for these metal tables.
While we were exploring the site several workers were busy with the upkeep of these tables, and it does seem that they all get regular maintenance.
I would say that vacancy/mortality of each table was roughly 20%. Each table had the capacity for 49 plugs total (7x7). So roughly 40 frags on 300 tables is about 12,000 corals total here in this one area. Pretty impressive. This number is probably a bit inflated however, as broodstock tables held less individual colonies, although their additional coral mass makes up for it I suppose.
In the later afternoon we went around Panggang to visit the "facilties" of 6 fish suppliers. Only one supplier has what I would consider a proper fish holding facility. It is a flow through system that was designed with MAC's help. During the day when the town's generator is not working, the facility is run on it's own generator. There appeared to be 3 separate water systems, all running on their own pumps. One system consisted of a large cement pool (maybe 3.5m L x 2.5m W x 1m D) that housed larger fish and stingrays collected for public aquariums. Then there was a system that consisted of several tiers of cement tanks. Territorial fish and those that needed individual separation in plastic jars were kept in this system. Another cement tank (about 2mx1mx1m) held only blue mandarinfish. Males were separated in plastic holding cups. Females swam freely. There must have been several hundred of them. It took some close inspection, but indeed a small hole was punctured in the dorsal fins, proof that they were caught with the new spear gun technique. Nevertheless, they all looked healthy and well on their way to healing. Another system was the traditional "cubical" system that anyone that's been to a wholesaler would easily identify with. Smaller cubes on top, larger tanks underneath. Filtration was conducted through wet/dry trickle through live rock. The fish at this facility were all very healthy and I saw very little mortality. Apparently about 10 fishermen supply the fish to this system. MAC staff conducted water quality tests, and the water was quite decent.
The other 5 facilities that I saw were all very similar to one another and rudimentary. 2 of them consisted of only a small bamboo shack over the water. Fish were kept in plastic bags, and the water is changed daily with new oxygen. The running expense for oxygen and labor makes them relatively expensive as compared to the running expenses of a flow through system, although the daily expenses are manageable as there is no large upfront investment for generators/pumps/tanks. The new fish were kept in plastic tubs on the floor. Occasionally a fish would flop out onto the floor. The other 3 were essentially the same, although these were located in buildings close to the water, rather than right over the water. Sea Anemones and pufferfish were kept in floating baskets attached to the docks. I believe that as part of the upcoming certification, the MAC fellows were trying to talk to these suppliers about updating and improving their holding facilities, but since I don't speak Indonesian, I couldn't follow along with the conversations.
While walking from one supplier to another I noticed in shallow water not 5 m from the garbage strewn shoreline a series of 6 coral aquaculture tables. One of the tables that had corals lying on their sides and not in very good health was actually located not even 1 meter horizontally from the dock "latrine". I'm not sure if these tables were merely holding tables for corals grown further offshore that were ready for export to Jakarta, or whether this was actually an attempt at coral aquaculture. The other 5 tables had otherwise healthy corals on them. I wasn't about to hop in the water and snorkel around to get a close look though...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So that is a rough summary of my experience in Pulau Seribu. It seems that things are getting better here, although there is still an aweful lot of room for improvement. Unfortunately the issue of only having electricity for about 15 hours a day is a major impediment towards trying to get suppliers to set up flow through systems. That is a problem that can't be fixed without a major infrastructure overhaul. Not likely any time soon. Rising gas prices make generators that much more prohibitive/unattractive. Coral aquaculture seems to be maturing steadily, but a lot of guidance/direction is needed, espcially for the farmers just starting out. The paperwork and documentation needed to get Indonesian approval for an aquaculture site seems to make the practice out of reach for the common fisherman looking to switch professions. They would need some sort of sponsorship by an exporter that can keep track of the paperwork. Nevertheless, it seems that almost half of the coral aquaculture that I have seen thus far is untagged, and thus "unofficial".
I will be back there in the next month or so I'm sure, and the MAC certification process begins in earnest in November. I"ll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Colin
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Last week I embarked to the regional province of Pulau Seribu (1000 Islands) to observe established and new attempts at in-situ coral mariculture, both for profit and also for rehabilitation/transplantation. To reach Pulau Seribu, and more specifically the island of Pulau Panggang, we had to fly from Bali to Jakarta, and then take a boat 2.5 hours north east. A faster boat probably could have reached the island in an hour, but we took the traditional and crowded diesal chugging commuter/supply boat. My trip coincided with a MAC workshop sponsored by the regional government. This is the first time that the government has paid to bring MAC out to conduct training, which suggests to me that perhaps the government was finally taking notice and approving of MACs contribution to the local economy of ornamental fishermen. Because the government was paying for our trip, they put us up in the only "villas" on the neighboring Island of Pramuka. They provided a buffet for every meal as well. A matress on the floor, toilet, and A/C after 6 pm, posh posh.
After dropping off our bags at our rooms we were shuttled by boat the 1km distance to the island of Panggang where all of the fishemen live. After arriving in Panggang, we walked to the village's "town hall", where 68 (essentially all of them) of the island's fishermen had gathered along with members of the local government and Pulau Seribu National Park staff. The governemnt had provided box meals for everyone present. Many of the organizers were wearing shirts that had pictures of ornamental fish with the caption "Give us a chance to live longer". I wasn't sure if this referred to the fish being collected, the fishermen, or both? I was also perplexed as to why this caption was in English (So you could read it Colin, so you could read it...). As all 60+ fishermen gathered in the room, one of the important government types gave an appreciative but serious introduction. He apparently introduced me as a "buyer" from the USA to the fishermen. The fishermen all seemed very enthusiastic to be present (the free food probably helped too), and listened intently to the speakers. Even I was a bit surprised at this enthusiam. The teaching is very basic. It seems to be at about a 5 or 6th grade level. It appears that MAC goes out of their way to make the teaching interactive and to avoid talking "down" to them.
Some short film clips MAC displayed on a projector of fishermen here in Pulau Seribu taken maybe 6 months ago or so really opened my eyes wide to what is really going on. Some of these clips showed how the fishermen don't use fins or snorkels, but rather just walk across the corals, stepping on Montipora capricornis and tabling Acroporas, but conciously avoiding the sharper Seriatopora and Diadema urchin spines. Cyanide use, it seems, is really just one small part of a larger problem. So much is made of the cyanide issue, it seems that a lot of the more basic issues being tackled by MAC are easily overlooked. The fact that a man whose adult life has been spent collecting ornamental fish doesn't even know how to swim with fins and snorkel quite surprised me. Another clip showed "swimming lessons" where these fishermen flopped around in the water trying to do their best at swim fin-propulsion and coordinated snorkel-breathing. I can only imagine what sort of efficiency is gained when the fisherman no longer has to pull his head up out of the water to breathe when he is after a fast moving fish. When we came to Pulau Seribu, we brought along with us several boxes of masks, fins, snorkels, and netting. From what I understand, these sets will be offered to the fishermen for about $20 total which the fisherman can then pay off little by little each month. When I was out on a boat going to see a coral propagation site, it was hard to miss a fisherman who was wearing a makeshift lifejacket to help him float, as he was still learning to use his fins and snorkel. Still another film clip showed a fisherman at the end of the day separating his "ornamental catch" from his "grouper feed" baitfish using only his hand to scoop them up from the bucket, with the fish occastionally flopping around the ground when they hopped out of his hand. Still another clip showed a supplier carelessly tossing plastic bags of fish into the back of a pickup truck to be left uncovered in the mid-day sun. I asked if any of these videos had made available to public viewing, perhaps on the MAC website or at a conference or something, and I was dissappointed that the answer was 'no'. I think that most people would never believe this stuff without seeing it with their own eyes. I certainly wouldn't have thought about it. And I did not get the impression that these were films of "worst case scenarios", but in fact candid videos of everyday procedure, as was evidenced by the giggles let loose by the fishermen when they recognized someone from the clips.
Several weeks earlier MAC had brought in a Filino trainer to teach fishing techniques alternative to cyanide use. The fishermen had perviously been in disbelief that mandarins, comets, eels, and angels could be caught without cyanide. However, with the trainer's techniques of using small spear guns to spear mandarins though the dorsal fin, bamboo traps for comets, 'nooses' for eels, and barrier nets for angels, the fishermen were readily impressed. From what I gather, in a nutshell, cyanide is no longer a cheap commodity, at least in Indonesia. Originally it was cheap enough that the exporters or suppliers would give cyanide for free to the fishermen who supplied them. I would imagine that when a fishermen gets his cyanide for free he is likely to use it far too liberally (afterall he didn't have to pay for it), and I'm sure that fish and reef health was considerably affected negatively. However, in recent times with the increasing price of cyanide, the free-cyanide gravy-train ended, forcing the fishermen to buy it on their own. I can imagine that this would have caused the fishermen to be a lot more selective and careful about which species they used it for, and how much cyanide they used per fish. In Pulau Seribu, this came down to mandarins, comets, eels, and angels. One of the Indonesian MAC staff had observed fishermen using cyanide to collect mandarinfish and related me the economics. Half a kilo of Cyanide costs $3, and with it the fisherman might collect $5 worth of fish, leaving him with only $2 of profit. Therefore, by teaching these alternative net-collection techniques the fisherman are learning ways to make more money TODAY (something that is probably more readily understandable to them than the longterm benefits of healthier reefs for tomorrow.). This new training and insight was so convicing to the fishermen as a group, that they are now very interested in this whole MAC certification business. After 2 years of working in Pulau Seribu it seems like fruits are coming to bear.
I was unaware that when MAC gives certification to fishermen, it is done as collective effort. All of the local fishermen and suppiers are certified as a whole. This seems to be a logical decision, as it encourages a tight-knit fishing community that looks out for each other. In theory, one bad apple using cyanide or unsustainable fishing techniques threatens the certification of everyone else. So I imagine this causes people to look out for each other and keep their eyes open. This also hopefully encourages the fishermen to establish fair prices for their fish as a whole, rather than trying to undercut each other's already meager gains. This seems to be a topic of concern with regard to Pulau Seribu's mandarinfish. From what I gather Seribu is considered by the Jakarta exporters to have the highest quality and most colorful blue mandarins. Therefore, some sort of community concensus to get a more fair price for these fish seems to be in order.
Apparently the wounds from the small spear gun heal in 2-3 days. Indeed, all of the mandarins I saw at the supplier facility were either already healed, or well on their way. I don't think that these wounds would be obvious to a buyer once they reach retail stores abroad. These mandarins all seemed 100% healthy despite the intrusive method of capture.
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On our second day in Pulau Seribu we started the day by being invited to the local govenment's offices to meet the regional governor. In the lobby they had perhaps a 90 gallon saltwater fishtank showcasing the locally-grown aquacultured corals...All of which were a lovely shade of bright white. Perhaps they put them in the tank a week or so ago in anticipation of our arrival, and this was the result. We waited in a meeting room for nearly an hour before the governor finally arrived. He seemed very serious, but seemed to make everyone laugh at least once every 1-2 minutes (I suppose that that laughing at any attempt at humor is what you are supposed to do in the presence of a dominant governing figure). Of course I don't understand enough Indonesian to follow along... I felt a bit underdressed in my "Dark Side of the Moon" board shorts (On sale at Target for only 8.95 ;-)), when everyone else was wearing long pants. Gayatri covered for me by telling him that I was a fish collector from the USA (I was), and clearly fish collectors here would never be expected of such formal dress...Also I am from the USA, so that probably buys me a lot of disgression outside of normal custom here. The governor did speak English, so he and I were able to talk about what I had hoped to accomplish here in Pulau Seribu and in Indonesia. He stressed that he would like to introduce as many alternative means of income as possible for his people, while conserving the coral reefs. According to the other folks I asked afterwards, he seems to be genuine in his concern, having recently built a small hospital and other civic improvements on the islands.
After the meeting, Gayatri and I were taken out to a coral propagation site. It is located nearly 1 km offshore of Pulau Panggang on the edge of a shallow reef flat before it slopes sharply to about 10-12 meters. The coral growth along the upper slope and on the flat is pretty impressive, and for the most part healthy, although the occasional crown-of-thorns starfish and perhaps 10% mild-moderate coral bleaching are apparent. The coral community was dominated by Acroporas and foliose Montipora colonies. What was most interesting about this site, and as I would later find out, the rest of the surrounding reefs, was that the corals are almost all uniformly brown and lacking in bright pigmentation. This clearly presents a problem for sourcing desireable broodstock for coral culturing. Even the corals that they had under culture were much less colorful than the corals I had seen at Serangan in Bali. Why this is I can't be sure. I can speculate that the increased turbidity of the water due to the close proximity to Panggang might be factor. Brightly pigmented SPS seem to come from clear, shallow water. Perhaps the turbidity reduces light levels that one might encounter on a pristine reef at 5m or 10m (hard to know without actually doing a measurement). Anyway, this is pure speculation on my part, but the lack of color is confounding.
At this one site there must have been close to 100 tables in total. The tables were constructed of PVC pipe with two cross bars for support. Fish netting was stretched over the tables to hold the cement bases. The tables don't appear to be anchored to the bottom, unlike Serangan. In many cases the tables have been placed overtop of other wild coral colonies. The result being that a fast-growing coral (like A. millepora) will end up growing right through and encrusting the netting. This obviously ruins the table for future use, so it seems like a good angle to take when instructing proper table placement is "Don't put your tables over wild coral colonies as they will encrust your tables making them useless, and costing you money", rather than "Don't put the tables over wild corals because it can destroy the natural coral reef...". This is clearly an issue that needs addressing in a MAM standard for coral aquaculture. The frag bases are cement and seem acceptable in size and shape for retail sale. The corals are attached to the concrete bases with concrete, as opposed to epoxy or "bondo" as seen at Serangan. The plugs are attached to the netting with string, and for the most part stay upright. The low current and wave action here doesn't seem to require stronger attachment methods. I don't like the netting as much as the metal tables I saw at Sarangan, as they have a tendancy to sag a bit which causes the coral piece to more easily tip over.
Broodstock colonies are kept on separate tables about 75 meters away, and are attached to much larger (6"x6") slabs of concrete. Many of these broodstock colonies are quite large, and I didn't see any evidence of recent pruning from them. In fact most of the F1 corals were far too large to sell or ship efficiently and in need of severe pruning. The Seriatopora colonies seem to be quite undesireable from this location. I think that the low wave action results in needle-sharp, wiry branches that don't look very sightly. Furthermore, once the colonies get past a certain size, macroalgae seems to overgrow the inner branches. The Caulastrea that I saw here was nearly all bleaching to some extant. I don't see any wild Caulsastrea in the vicinity, and from my experience studying this species at Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier reef, it prefers deeper water than the reef crest. The bleaching is no doubt due to light stress. Torch Euphyllia (E. glabrescens) was likewise an unflattering drab brown.
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Today I was taken diving courtesy of the Pulau Seribu National Park. Apparently 40% of the waters here are encompassed by the National Park, and last year the wild harvest of corals was banned in the rest of the waters. Enforcement of rules within the park I'm sure is a major issue. I was taken to 2 different sites. The first was to see the area's soft coral growth. It was about 1.5 km west of Panggang and just off a reef slope not too dissimiliar to what I saw yesterday snorkelling. Average depth of about 15 m. I did see plenty of Sarcophyton and Alcynium (colt coral), but the majority of what I saw was hard coral. Of note at this site were some exceptionally bright orange, orange/white, and orange/white/blue zoanthids that covered large sections of coral rubble. There was also a type of Clavularia that was very common and seemed to fluoresce lightly orange (and some green). Visibility was quite low and turbid at no more than 4 m.
The second dive was to the East of Panggang in a "marine protected area". This MPA measures in total only 300mx300m, but the rule of no-fishing or collection is apparently well observed. This site was located about 150 m oceanside of a large grouper/fish rearing facility (upstream of the fish poop). This was also the site of the National Park's coral transplantation/rehabilitation effort. They were using large 12" square cement slabs that have a piece of 6" PVC pipe sticking out. The coral frags are attached only with plastic cable ties. I don't think that this method seems to be the most efficient method of attachment, as even frags that were growing for several months had yet to really attach themselves down to the base. The current was quite strong here, so we just drifted along the reef slope at about 10 meters. Large monospecific stands of scrolled cream/brown Montipora capricornis dominated for most of the dive, and then towrds the end of the dive, similiarly foliacious Pavona cactus coral dominated the slope. Nothing stuck out on this dive except for one bright, red M. Capricornis amongst a sea of brown. At the end of the dive we surfaced under a fish growout net, part of a floating network of these square net-pens that extended out from the adjacent small island dedicated entirely to grouper and foodfish growout. The government sells the culturists grouper fry that they they raise to maturity in these growout pens. However, in these particular pens that we surfaced alongside, I only saw a scant assortment of ornamental fish, 2 small black-tip reef sharks, and a few wild-caught food-fish being grownout to a larger size. In a smaller net-pen within the pen there were about 150 4-5" grouper that eagerly ate pelleted food. In a floating laundary basket were 10 baby hawksbill turtles swimming somewhat languidly, only 1 month old. Apparently the National Park has a sea turtle hatching propgram. At one month of age, some of the turtles are released back into the wild. And some, like these, are given to the locals to continue to feed and take care of until one year of age. I'm not sure if they get paid for doing this or what, but the turtles' "owner" showed me the government "contract" that proved that he was the legal guardian of them.
That night I had a good long chat with an Indonesian filmmaker/environmental activist about some of the issues plaguing Indonesia's environment. I was most fascinated but his recent work with the illegal logging of West Papua (Irian Jaya) (also home the world's largest strip mine, owned by the Freeport Mining Company of the good ole USA. What was once a large mountain is now a huge deep crater). Apparently 600,000 cubic meters of timber is illegal harvested by Chinese companies every month. West Papua is the last stand of virgin forest in Indonesia, as illegal logging has already stripped Sumatra, Kalamantan, etc. The Chinese pay off the Indonesian military who set up guarded quadrangles of forest while the clearing takes place. Another environmental disaster of late here in Indonesia has been a constant flow of hot mud that is oozing out of the ground in Java at a rate of up to 50,000 cubic meters per day since JUNE. It has plowed over houses, killed people, contaminated groundwater and the air with hydrogen sulfide, and in general been a huge, terrible disaster. And it was all caused by an error on the part of a BP-sponsored oil exploration well. Another environmental disaster is the relase of mercury into the rivers by mining companies resulting in entire villages of children severly mercury poisoned, bleeding from all orifaces of their bodies and incurring severe neurological damage/retardation. Ah, the plight of the developing nation, exploited at any cost (just so long as you are paying off the right guy). I'm sure that that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Today I went out with a local coral farmer to search for better and more colorful broodstock colonies than I had seen growing around Pulau Seribu. We left by boat and traveled about 45 minutes to the north west of Pulau Panggang to where "The more colorful corals live". The first site was about 75 m from the shore of a small uninhabitated island. The snorkelling here, as at the next site, was fantastic. The coral coverage was exceptional. Starting from the shore out to about 60 meters was mostly macroalgae; caulerpa and halimeda. Then coral dominated along the shallow (1m) reef crest for about 15 m before dropping off sharply into maybe 7 m of water. Coral coverage was heavy until about 3 meters of depth when the slope became largely littered with coral fragments, rubble, and sand. 75% of the coral coverage was Acropora, mostly A. Millepora (tabling), A. formosa (staghorn), A. florida (smaller branches off big thick branches), and A. Humilis (thick stubby branches). Also massive Porites heads and foliose Montipora with a smattering of Hydnophora, Lobophyllia, Euphyllia glabrescens, and Fungia. This was clearly an archetypal shallow water coral community. The water quality was significantly improved over Panggang. Maybe 7 m with little floc in the water column. Lots of Diadema urchins to make me suck in my belly as I cruised over them in the shallow water. I saw much less bleaching here than I have seen elsewhere.
One of the collectors swam with a laundary basket outfitted with styrofoam and a nylon cord attached. Another used a flat-head screwdiver, minus the plastic "grip", to break off branches of corals deemed worthy of culturing. Usually this consisted of about 1/10 of the whole colony or a piece about the size of your hand. These fragments were then placed in the basket, and along we went. Most of the species collected corresponded to their abundance. Blue, light pink, red-pink, purple, green, and an interesting grey color of A. millepora were collected. Also bright green A. Florida with orange tips, blue tipped A. formosa, bright blue A. humilis, bright green Hydnophora (even Hydnophora near Panggang is brown!), and several nice blue and purple porites and montipora colonies were collected. Of all the corals that I had seen under propagation in Penggang, these were by far the brightest, so I had thought that these additions would help out....
The second Island we snorkelled at was only another 5 minutes away and was quite similiar by all accounts as the first. They collected another laundary basket of corals from here as well. The corals were placed in an 2 export-size styrofoam boxes filled with sea water.
When we finally got back to Panggang, it became clear to me that these collectors were not at all prepared to do something productive with these fragments now that they had collected them. They seemed to be content to just put them on the seafloor and go get lunch and deal with them tomorrow. However through my prodding, we compromised, got lunch and then headed back out on the boat to the propagation site. When we arrived at the site, one of the men who seemed to be in charge took over the task of breaking the fragments that we had harvested into 3-4" pieces of just a few branches using snipping pliers. Once this was done it became clear to me that there was definately not enough broodstock bases to go around for all the coral that we had collected. This was clearly why he had suddenly lost interest in many nice, large pieces of coral fragments still left in the bottom of the styrofoam box. Sigh. So in all, only 2 tables were available with 16 bases on each table. We had harvested enough coral to make more than twice as many broodstock colonies. I tried several times to request that once he had used as many pieces as he could, to give me what was left such that I could swim it over to the shallow coral rubble area and scatter it around in hopes that some would take hold and grow. However, while I was in the water observing the attachment process with wet cement, these extra pieces were simply dumped over the side in about 10 meters of water where the chance of survival was next to zero. I was considerablly irritated by this wasteful carelessness. I was also dissappointed to see that the corals that this fellow had growing were clearly identical to the new ones that we had just harvested. I hadn't seen his particular site before, so I wasn't aware of this until now. However, even though I could see that they were the same morphs, it was clear that they had gone about 2 shades more pale. From fluorescent to pastel. So there is definately something about this area near Panggang that results in less colorful coral. In total we introduced maybe 1 or 2 new corals to his broodstock. I was also peeved at the lack of concern shown for a large crown-of-thorns starfish sitting just below several tables. Sigh. I naively tried to move it myself, and was quickly reminded that these stars are not only spikey (but they look so plastic...), they are venomous. Ouch. You only make that mistake once.
For the past several days while I have been out tramping around, the Indonesian MAC staffers have been giving both in the water training during the day (traingin all the while still being able to catch fish), and then classroom training in the evening. The formal "government sponsored" workshop ended today, so for the next two nights I will be staying in the home of one of the fishermen in Panggang.
Walking through Penggang is quite an eye-opening experience in itself. About 4000 people call this 9 hectare island home. Houses are cramped onto small lots with tiny or non-existant yards. Everyday leaves and trash are swept up from the yards and burned, leaving a very tidy, albeit hard dirt yard. I would imagine that if people composted their leaves and table scraps some good nutrients and fertilizer could be recycled to the soil. But then again there is practically no gardening of any kind that I can see; there just isn't enough space. As such, fresh fruit and vegetables are scarce and in high demand. Outside of the personal property, trash is abundant and pervasive. The shoreline is a colorful mess of ramen noodle packets, plastic bags, plastic bottles, etc, etc. Greywater drains from the homes into gutters along all the small paved "streets". The smells of urine, hydrogen sulfide, burning rubbish, and dead fish mix together to make a wonderful aroma of general filth. I suppose that you just get used to it after a while. Children are everywhere on the island. I estimate that 1/4-1/3 of the population is under the age of 12 (of course they would be the most visible segment of the population). Most of the older teenagers leave the island for better opportunity in Jakarta. I am quite a spectacle here in this small town. Tourists are non-existant here, so the prescence of white skin makes for stares from older folks and giggling from younger ones. 8-12 year old girls are particularly impressed. I might as well be in a Boy Band. Well not quite, but almost...
At the house were I am staying there isn't even a hole to poop in. If you have to do that, you must walk out to the docks and do so over the water. Bathing is done with the brackish water from the well and a bucket. However, the house does have a modern TV. Indonesian soap operas (actually sponsored by soap companies) and pop singing/dancing variety shows are very popular. The people on TV are very glamorous and urban of course. Bits of English are thrown into commercials to make them 'hip'. Lots of junkfood commercials for sweets that "give you energy" showing futuristic astro-kids travelling through technicolor worm-holes complete with jet packs. Not too different from the USA I s'pose. Most people seem to have cell phones that are much more modern than the one that I carry back in the US. It is an amazing mish-mash of high technology in the developing world.
The clear majority of residents are devout Muslims; most girls wear head coverings and several times a day over the town's loadspeakers prayers are chanted. Prayer takes place 5 times a day. Alcohol as far as I can tell is practically non-existant on the island. Despite the devout religion, I don't at all get the impression that it is at all remotely "fundamentalist", it's the just the way things are. Furthermore, I haven't at all run into any anti-Americanism yet. I have asked a few Indonesians about what they think of Americans and most still like Americans along with our movies, music, pop culture, etc. I think that many don't have much of an opinion or give much thought to the world at large outside of their own daily lives.
The children and the MAC staff sleep on the hard floor. I sleep on a large mattress that probably sleeps the 3 daughters. There is plenty of room for the other Indonesian MAC staff on this hug mattress, but they choose the floor. Maybe they feel uncomfortable sharing the mattress with me, maybe I smell. I insist that I shouldn't be the only one sleeping on the large mattress, but in the end I am the only one that sleeps there.
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This morning we set out to see some of the more established coral aquaculture sites. These are sites that are sponsored by some of the larger coral exporters in Jakarta. This site is located about 75 m offshore of Pulau Pramuka (The 1st island we stayed on) in a depth of about 2 m over mostly dead coral rubble. The water is pretty turbid (maybe 3m horizontal vis) and I don't think that there is much wave action, but probably gets pretty decent current during tide changes. This site turned out to be very large. In all there were about 300 tables belonging to 4 exporters. One of the exporters produces about 300 corals a week for sale here. The tables were the most organized and professional looking of any that I had seen while in Pulau Seribu. Species selection was impressive. Still mostly Acropora and SPS, but also a decent variety of Heliopora, Echinopora, Pectinia, etc. The colors are pretty good also, but again I think that there is something about this area that causes them to be a bit more pale than they could be under optimum conditions. Broodstock selection was large and healthy, and F1 corals were already broodstock size for most species. I am still perplexed at the lack of observable evidence of "fresh" pruning that I would expect to see in a well managed coral farm... Indonesian/CITES approved tags were used on the colonies. On each tag a number registers the region in Indonesia where they are grown, the company that owns them, and the broodstock designation. The generation is noted (i.e. F1) A code is also given for the species, and a specific number is given to the exact fragment (i.e. Acmp 10018 = Acropora millepora colony # 18). These plastic tags are attached to the base and are usually well covered over with coralline algae.
Most of the tables were contructed of PVC pipe filled with cement and netting strung between the frame. Circular rings of perhaps 2" PVC were stitched onto this netting to act as the "holder" for the cement plugs that were made in an identical sized mold. For the most part it seems like these holders worked well, although tipped over colonies were still too common for me to consider them a "successful" method of attachment. Very little wild coral was obstructed by the placement of these tables. Unlike Serangan, the tables were not firmly anchored to the sea floor. One of the companies constructed their tables from metal, but still used netting in between. It seems that rust corrosion is going to be an issue in another year or so for these metal tables.
While we were exploring the site several workers were busy with the upkeep of these tables, and it does seem that they all get regular maintenance.
I would say that vacancy/mortality of each table was roughly 20%. Each table had the capacity for 49 plugs total (7x7). So roughly 40 frags on 300 tables is about 12,000 corals total here in this one area. Pretty impressive. This number is probably a bit inflated however, as broodstock tables held less individual colonies, although their additional coral mass makes up for it I suppose.
In the later afternoon we went around Panggang to visit the "facilties" of 6 fish suppliers. Only one supplier has what I would consider a proper fish holding facility. It is a flow through system that was designed with MAC's help. During the day when the town's generator is not working, the facility is run on it's own generator. There appeared to be 3 separate water systems, all running on their own pumps. One system consisted of a large cement pool (maybe 3.5m L x 2.5m W x 1m D) that housed larger fish and stingrays collected for public aquariums. Then there was a system that consisted of several tiers of cement tanks. Territorial fish and those that needed individual separation in plastic jars were kept in this system. Another cement tank (about 2mx1mx1m) held only blue mandarinfish. Males were separated in plastic holding cups. Females swam freely. There must have been several hundred of them. It took some close inspection, but indeed a small hole was punctured in the dorsal fins, proof that they were caught with the new spear gun technique. Nevertheless, they all looked healthy and well on their way to healing. Another system was the traditional "cubical" system that anyone that's been to a wholesaler would easily identify with. Smaller cubes on top, larger tanks underneath. Filtration was conducted through wet/dry trickle through live rock. The fish at this facility were all very healthy and I saw very little mortality. Apparently about 10 fishermen supply the fish to this system. MAC staff conducted water quality tests, and the water was quite decent.
The other 5 facilities that I saw were all very similar to one another and rudimentary. 2 of them consisted of only a small bamboo shack over the water. Fish were kept in plastic bags, and the water is changed daily with new oxygen. The running expense for oxygen and labor makes them relatively expensive as compared to the running expenses of a flow through system, although the daily expenses are manageable as there is no large upfront investment for generators/pumps/tanks. The new fish were kept in plastic tubs on the floor. Occasionally a fish would flop out onto the floor. The other 3 were essentially the same, although these were located in buildings close to the water, rather than right over the water. Sea Anemones and pufferfish were kept in floating baskets attached to the docks. I believe that as part of the upcoming certification, the MAC fellows were trying to talk to these suppliers about updating and improving their holding facilities, but since I don't speak Indonesian, I couldn't follow along with the conversations.
While walking from one supplier to another I noticed in shallow water not 5 m from the garbage strewn shoreline a series of 6 coral aquaculture tables. One of the tables that had corals lying on their sides and not in very good health was actually located not even 1 meter horizontally from the dock "latrine". I'm not sure if these tables were merely holding tables for corals grown further offshore that were ready for export to Jakarta, or whether this was actually an attempt at coral aquaculture. The other 5 tables had otherwise healthy corals on them. I wasn't about to hop in the water and snorkel around to get a close look though...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So that is a rough summary of my experience in Pulau Seribu. It seems that things are getting better here, although there is still an aweful lot of room for improvement. Unfortunately the issue of only having electricity for about 15 hours a day is a major impediment towards trying to get suppliers to set up flow through systems. That is a problem that can't be fixed without a major infrastructure overhaul. Not likely any time soon. Rising gas prices make generators that much more prohibitive/unattractive. Coral aquaculture seems to be maturing steadily, but a lot of guidance/direction is needed, espcially for the farmers just starting out. The paperwork and documentation needed to get Indonesian approval for an aquaculture site seems to make the practice out of reach for the common fisherman looking to switch professions. They would need some sort of sponsorship by an exporter that can keep track of the paperwork. Nevertheless, it seems that almost half of the coral aquaculture that I have seen thus far is untagged, and thus "unofficial".
I will be back there in the next month or so I'm sure, and the MAC certification process begins in earnest in November. I"ll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Colin
