"Damage to the marine environment due to excessive exploitation may have negative impacts on the supply of food for the people, especially for Indonesians who get 60 percent of their total protein consumption from marine products," Acmad Poernomo, Indonesia`s representative in the APEC Marine Resources Conservation Working Group, said here on Tuesday at the group`s annual meeting.
He made the statement in response to APEC`s plan to merge the Marine Conservation Working Group and the Fisheries Cooperation Working Group soon.
Poernomo said marine resources were of substantial economic benefit to Asia Pacific countries. But at the same time, conservation was needed to ensure the sustainability of the resources.
He took as example Indonesia which since the 1980s had started to implement marine conservation by establishing a program called Marine Protected Areas (MPA). Up till 2010, he said, there were 14 million hectares of MPA in the country scattered from ocean near Sumatra island to Papua.
"The government has set a target to have a total of 20 million hectares of MPA by 2020. Such achievement is expected not only to ensure the sustainability of local marine resources but also protect world`s biodiversity," he said.
In forming MPAs, he added, the central government tried to involve officials from the regional government as well as the local community.
Meanwhile, APEC`s Chairman for Marine Resources Conservation Working Group Ulises Munaylla expressed appreciation towards Indonesia`s stance on marine conservation issue saying "It is important to keep the balance between marine industry and conservation in order to secure the sustainability of world`s economy as well as marine resources," he said. (*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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