Protecting The Underwater Paradise Of Kapontori Buton And The Threat To Fishermen's Lives

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KENDARI - The coastal villages of Boneatiro and West Boneatiro in Kapontori District, Buton Regency, Southeast Sulawesi, can be reached in approximately 60 minutes by car from the center of Baubau City.

When treading the village road, travelers will be served with a smile from the coastal residents as if welcoming relatives who come from overseas.

Not only showing friendliness among each other, the residents who mostly work as fishermen in the area also seem to have a high awareness of protecting nature, especially the sea.

They are fully aware that the sea is a fish habitat that needs to be properly protected and conserved, because if this is not done, it will have a negative impact on the catches of the fishermen themselves.

In the waters of this village can be found various types of fish such as katamba (lethrinus lentjan), bigeye (priacanthus macracanthus), and mada (lutjanus vitta).

Efforts to maintain the underwater ecosystem in realizing sustainable fisheries in the area are currently being carried out by the Indonesian Rare Organization in collaboration with the local government.

Rare together with the Buton Fisheries Service involved the coastal communities of Boneatiro and West Boneatiro Villages in conserving the underwater ecosystem as an effort to preserve the fish habitat where they breed.

However, when their territorial waters become the target of the actions of other irresponsible fishermen, namely using bombs or explosives when going to sea, it becomes quite an extreme challenge for the residents of the two villages.

The challenge is that when other fishermen come to sea in the waters of Boneatiro and West Boneatiro villages using explosives to catch fish, when they are prohibited, they also pose a potential life threat to the coastal communities.

Life threatening

Protecting the sea is apparently not as easy as turning the palm of the hand, but it is also a risk to the lives of the fishermen themselves. This story is told by a fisherman named Saidi, a 39-year-old man when he was met at his residence in Boneatiro Village.

While accompanied by a glass of water, he said that he had once found a person of the same profession as himself who was fishing in the waters of his village.

Launching Antara, Monday, September 13, this man with four children knew the person was going to bomb fish in the area. But what is the power of him being alone in the ocean when faced with people whose character is not yet known, especially at night.

Saidi also admitted that he was worried that if he did not forbid this person, the survival of the fishermen in his village would be lost in the hands of the fishermen who wanted to carry out the bomb because it caused damage to marine life.

However, on the other hand his heart was beating fast feeling a little doubt and fear, if he approached to stop the fisherman, then the bomb would fly to the boat and him.

The thought crossed his wavering mind. So he made a tough and forced decision to leave the irresponsible person.

According to him, if the perpetrators of the fish bombing are residents of his village, it will not be an obstacle for him to remind him that catching fish with bombs can damage corals so that fish cannot breed.

"That's why we died there, not people from here who used bombs. From here we might be able to convey it as a family, but these are distant people," he said.

It didn't stop there, he was sometimes considered a spy by other fishermen. This man admitted that he went to sea using the rawe fishing system, which is a traditional fishing method that has been carried out since his marriage in 2012 ago.

This friendly and smiling man hopes that the presence of the Rare Indonesia organization in collaboration with the Buton Fisheries Service can prevent actions that can damage the survival of the underwater ecosystem through the fisheries area access management program (PAAP) and no-take areas (KLA).

While laughing, he said that looking for fish in the sea is not looking for a lot of catch, but still being able to support his small family.

When the bombing of fish was rampant, he was also forced to go to sea from 01.00 WITA in the morning and return at 07.00 WITA because he had to go to sea in waters that were quite far away.

However, after the current PAAP and KLA programs, he went to sea at 03.00 WITA and was even able to return home after installing rawe and returned to see his fishing line at 06.00 WITA, because the location was not far from the time of the bombings.

Similarly, the Head of Boneatiro Barat Village, Ilyas, admitted that previously there were fishermen from outside the village who carried out bombs while at sea. Even in July 2021 there were fishermen who were arrested and then processed legally.

Then, as it progressed until September 2021, the community no longer found other fishermen carrying out bombs in the village's waters.

Actually, the hope of the village community is that it does not matter if fishermen outside the area use the same fishing gear when going to sea, because they are both looking for a life for their respective families.

According to him, his village, which was an expansion of Boneatiro Village in 2011, is one of the areas contributing to fishery products in Wameo Market, Baubau City.

Coral transplant

After coral reefs were damaged by fishermen from other areas using bombs, now dozens of fishermen from Boneatiro and West Bonaetiro villages are carrying out conservation or rehabilitation of degraded coral reefs through grafting or coral transplantation techniques.

Fishery Extension Officer of the Fisheries Service of Buton Regency, Sri Hermawaty, said that the fishermen who carried out coral transplants were those who were members of the fisheries area access management group (PAAP), which is a program of the Indonesian Rare Organization.

Coral transplantation is carried out by fishermen who are accompanied by the Fisheries Service and the Indonesian Rare Organization in an area that has been agreed with the local coastal community to become a no-take area (KLA) or no-take zone.

The no-take area will later become the responsibility of the fishermen who are members of the PAAP group, both administrators and members in carrying out supervision.

In the future supervision, there is already a ship provided by Rare, which has been budgeted for including the boundaries of the no-take zone or the area's conservation area.

The Head of Boneatiro Barat Village, Ilyas, welcomed the program from Rare Indonesia, which is to encourage fishermen to create a sustainable underwater ecosystem so as to create a fish habitat.

As a village government with 155 families (KK), Ilyas is very supportive because 90 percent of the residents in fact all make a living or depend on fishery products.

This alumnus of the Faculty of Fisheries, Halu Oleo University (UHO) Kendari assessed that coral transplantation has enormous benefits, especially for the protection of fish habitats which will certainly become breeding areas for fish in the future.

In addition, he added, coral transplantation, which will coincide with seaweed cultivation activities, is expected to increase the number of fish so that fishermen can produce more catches.

He revealed that previously his party had tried to cultivate seaweed and it had been running for four months, with the result that at that time large fish entered the reefs of the area.

La Uma (28), a fisherman from Boneatiro who participated in the coral transplant activity, said that he participated in the coral reef care activity so that in the future the fish in the local village waters could breed well.

This man of one child expressed his hope that with the coral transplant, in the future, he would no longer have to go fishing to distant places, but could do it in the waters around the village.

"If you can fish in this area and don't go far away, until you pass the island in front of this (pointing to the island in front of the village), you save fuel too, the catch is the same," said La Uma.

Sustainable fisheries

The Rare Indonesia Organization and the Buton Regency government are campaigning for marine conservation zones in the areas of Bonaetiro Village and West Boneatiro in order to maintain a sustainable fisheries system.

Program Manager for Rare Indonesia, Imanda Hikmat Pradana, said that in the last four years, his party together with the Southeast Sulawesi regional government have implemented a fishery area access management program (PAAP) and a no-take area (KLA) in 11 districts, one of which is in Buton Regency.

The PAAP program in Southeast Sulawesi has been running since 2017 with 11 coastal districts as the target of program implementation. This province is also the pilot project for the first PAAP implementation partner by Rare Indonesia.

PAAP emphasizes the importance of managing ecosystems holistically so that environmental services can be well maintained.

The PAAP program encourages coastal communities in 22 locations in Southeast Sulawesi to form groups, create no-take areas, define fishing areas, carry out outreach activities and carry out behavior change campaigns, one of which is Boneatiro and West Boneatiro Villages, Kapontori District, Buton Regency.

PAAP and KLA programs to encourage conservation of marine areas and fisheries with approaches to community empowerment, governance policies and sustainable funding. Specifically PAAP is defined as an area that is permitted for fishermen to carry out fishing activities.

Meanwhile, the KLA or no-take zone will become a marine biota conservation area where no one is allowed to carry out fishing activities in areas that have been mutually agreed upon in advance.

The program is expected to provide many benefits for small fishermen and coastal communities in general.

By protecting coral reefs, it is the same as creating a sustainable fish habitat for our children and grandchildren.