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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Marine Biodiversity










Hi Hi everyone, I am Zhi Hao. And I am sharing with you some information about Marine Biodiversity.
Indonesia's collection of 17500 islands form a permeable barrier between Pacific and Idian Oceans and the great landmasses of Asia and Australia. The region is a cauldron of oceanic activities as water from the Pacific and Indian Oceans attempt to mix and the movements of large equational air masses are interrupted by the islands. This physical factors, combined with archipelago's singular geologic history, gave rise to coastal and marone habitats that are among the most productive and species-rich on earth.


At least forty-eight different type of marine ecosystem have been classified, each type of ecosystem host its own bevy of creatures.25% of all marine species are found in coral reefs, which cover less then 1% of the ocean floor. Indonesia's reef are inhabited by 2500 species of coloured fish and more than 400 species of stony coral. This impressive scorecard of coral reef species make the region the world's eptiome of marine biodiversity.


Although Wallace was the first westerner to discover some of th extensive reef, it was Charles Darwin who conducted the first comprehensive study of coral reef of the world.Darwin developed a distributional map of reef s and proposed a theory of coral reef evolution and classification.


In Darwin's scenario, a young volcano rising from the ocean depths attract free-floating coral larvae. Coral colonies grow to encircle the volcano and the sea, eventually forming a fringing reef. Through time ,the volcano gradually subsides back into the sea; meanwhile, the reef continues to build upward, forming a barrier reef and enclosing a lagoon that encircles the remainding land. When the lagoon completely fill the barrier reef, an atoll results. Darwin's simple but elegant theory was finally proven after he first proposed it.


The reefs are found throughout Indonesia. Each habitat is a world that resonates with life, changing according to the influuence of currents, tides, sunlight and moonlight. Fields of staghorn corals with delicately branched spikes, massive boulder corals, and table corals that fan out in rounds as delicate as doilies seem at first to be subtly lifeless rocks.Closer inspection reveals that the entire surface is a matrix of thousands of tiny, uniformly spaced cups, or calices, each housing its own living animal polyp. At night, the polyp of most coral species expand from their calices to capture food in the water column, exposing brillantly colured tentacles that transform into a lavish profusion of blossoms.Coral polyp augment their diet with the help of zooxanthallae(symbiotic single-celled plants), which are embedded in polyp's tissues and which use light to photosynthesis. In exchange for a protected habitat within the coral calyx, the zooxanthallae produce organic carbon compounds, which enable corals to grow by promoting the clarification process.


Corals form th structure of the reef ecosystem, providing endless variety of crevices, branches, holes, ledge, and niches for dwellers. A soft-bodied nudibranch glides over a coral branch, a goby shrimp arduously removes pebbles from its burrow entrance, cluster of magenta damselfish swirl above the precipice of the reef wall, an big grouper rests on a sandy bottom, a shark silently cruises in smooth arcs past the reef wall. Biologist have only understand the complexity of the coral reef system and to identify the thousands of species that inhabit it.

Over one hundred million people now live in the coastal zone of Indonesia. Most of them depend on the resources from healthy corals reefs and other marine habitats. With the advent of Indonesia's economic boom, these areas are being swallowed up by pollution and deforested areas.

The government oh Indonesia, recognizing the economic and biological importance of its marine resources, has enacted fishing restrictions and has established 35marine reserves that are currently 4.6 million hectares. Another 10 million hectares is targeted for marine conservation by the year2000. The sortage of equipment , facilities and trained enforcement field staff, along with a dearth of information and a lack of awareness and constituency. Djohani and others from local conservation organisations work with the government to improve marine park management plans. But instituting change over such a vast area quickly enough to stem the destructives tide is an enormous task.


A source of hope for the reefs may lie in the resurrection of sasi, a system of local marine tenure that has been practised in many fishing communities in the eastern Indonesia for centuries. With this system, members of the village maintain exclusive fishing rights to permit outsiders to enter their fishing area.


The pristine reefs in the habour at Ambon, which Wallce describe in 1869, have now succumbed to the ravages of pollution and sedimentation. The same fate may befall remaining reef areas in Indonesia if the call for conversation goes unheard.

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