For farmers, fishermen, climate change already close to home

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 04/23/2010 9:22 AM

For some, climate change is something on the horizon not requiring immediate attention, while for others it has hit close to home and adaptation is an urgent issue.

Local communities living in coastal areas in Bengkulu, for example, once predicted weather patterns from the position of the stars, which they used to determine times for fishing and when to begin planting crops.

Before 2000, such traditional knowledge had been used for generations of fishermen and farmers, including in Sukamenanti, Waihawang, Linau and Tanjung Beringin villages in Kaur regency around 360 kilometers from the capital of Bengkulu.

But the story has changed now. And they can no longer tell how big the waves will be when they go out to sea.

“Erratic rains and waves have inflicted serious damage to local communities in Bengkulu,” activist Zenzi Aekido from Bengkulu told a dialog held to commemorate Earth Day, in Jakarta on Thursday. The Earth Day falls on April 22 every year.

Zenzi, who is also the executive director of the Bengkulu chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said many of the people in these communities had changed jobs as a result.

“To adapt to unexpected weather conditions, communities have three options: to migrate to new areas, to change jobs or to continue with their existing condition,” he said.

Migrating could also mean they cleared forested areas, he said.

Some farmers had also shifted to sand or coal mining.

The People’s Coalition for Equal Fisheries (Kiara) found that many fishermen in Jakarta could no longer go to sea because of the unpredictable tides.

The government said farmers and people living in coastal areas were most prone to impacts of climate change.

The Central Bureau of Statistic (BPS) says there were 46.7 million farmers in Indonesia as of 2009.

Activists commemorating Earth Day called on the government to change its priority to adaptation measures, to help local people adjust to the impacts of climate change.

The activists said the government needed to start thinking about adaptation, not just mitigation.

“Local communities have been seriously affected by unpredictable weather, but the government is still busy seeking funds to mitigate climate change,” Nadia Hadad from the Bank Information Center said.

“Now is the time for the government to take real action to help people who have [already] suffered from climate change.”

The international climate talks so far have focused more on mitigation measures with a number of wealthier nations promising to provide funds to Indonesia to mitigate climate change.

The UN Adaptation Board, for the first time, opened the application for developing countries to apply adaptation funds.

But all the money stored at the UN adaptation board was collected from 2 percent of proceeds of carbon sales by developing countries.

On several occasions the government has said there was a shortage of funding allocated to adaptation measures.

NTB`s 2009 seaweed production reaches 100,000 tons

Antara News, Sunday, December 13, 2009 02:32 WIB

Mataram, W Nusa Tenggara (ANTARA News) - West Nusa Tenggara or NTB province produced a total of 100,000 tons of dried seaweed from January to November 2009, a maritime and fisheries official said.

"Actually NTB can increase its dried seaweed production because out of its 23,000 hectares of potential seaweed production area, only 6,700 hectares have so far been developed," head of the provincial maritime and fisheries office, H.M. Ali Syahdan said here Saturday.

Syahdan said NTB seaweed farmers became more motivated to produce seaweed after learning that the fisheries and marine commodity was exported to many countries.

In fact, seaweed was now one of Indonesia`s premier marine export commodities.

Therefore, it was not surprising that national seaweed production increased from 32,000 tons in 2006 to over 36,000 tons in 2007 and to nearly 70,000 tons in 2008 and 100,000 tons in 2009, he said.

NTB`s provincial government had launched a movement for coastal communities with a dried seaweed-based production target in the year 2013 totaling 546,626.40 tons of seaweed export standard quality.

According to Syahdan, NTB has the potential to produce 800,000 tons of seaweed in a producing area of about 41,000 hectares.

Seaweed production in this area was expected to continue to rise to the maximum target of 800,000 tons, Syahdan said, without mentioning the value of the exported seaweed.

Syahdan said, seaweed production centers were spread in the districts of East Lombok, Central Lombok, West Lombok, and other districts which have coastal area.

The number of seaweed farmers in the province had reached 6,000, he added.

Rising sea temperatures bad news for seaweed farmers

Desy Nurhayati, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali | Tue, 10/27/2009 10:45 PM

Seaweed farmers in Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan islands, Bali, are suffering from changing sea conditions as a result of climate change.

Community development group Kalimajari, which assist seaweed farmers in Nusa Penida, said sea temperatures had increased by between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius in the last two years, causing the outbreak of a disease locally known as ice-ice, a condition that causes seaweed to decay.

“Farmers have been complaining about sea temperatures getting hotter, and have found the outbreak occurs every planting cycle,” I Gusti Agung Ayu Widiastuti, from Kalimajari, told a seminar on adaptation to climate change in coastal areas, in Sanur, Bali, on Tuesday.

She said the extreme changes in sea conditions had depleted stocks of Euchema seaweed, previously the most profitable species for farmers.

Seaweed production decreased from 500 tons in 2007 to 200 tons in 2008.

Seaweed farming is the main livelihood of people on the two islands.

Normally, they earn between Rp 1.5 and 2 million each harvest period, but now they struggle to make ends meet.