“It’s very likely that this will be one of the last areas where you still have significant production of seafood, but this area will not be able to feed the world.
“It’s not just about fish and food but the very fact of certain species that we don’t even know exist ... that may be the cure for HIV.
“If that particular organism or particular ecosystem is gone before we figure it out, it’s a big loss.”
About 120 million people living in the Coral Triangle depend on the seas for their livelihoods, and although they are among the greatest potential victims of the collapse of local ecosystems, they also often play the role of vandals.
Spread out on thousands of islands across porous national borders, many living in impoverished communities have turned to poisoning fish with cyanide or blowing them up with dynamite, said Marthen Welly, who runs a TNC program at Nusa Lembongan and its neighboring islands.
“Middlemen tie up the fishermen with debt for life. The fishermen have to pay back their debts by selling fish every day, but it’s the middlemen who set the price and they set it as low as possible,” he said.
“Sometimes fishermen know that using bombs and cyanide breaks the law and wrecks the reefs, but they’re also squeezed.”
The approach of non-governmental organizations and governments has been to try to introduce alternative livelihoods and get communities on board in protecting the environment through so-called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
If everything goes to plan, Nusa Lembongan will soon be covered by one of the MPAs, which already spread over about 10,000 hectares in Indonesia.
The area has been a relative success without outside help. Tourist dollars and the introduction of seaweed farming in the 1980s have lifted local farmers and fishermen out of desperate poverty, and put conservation on the agenda.
“Before there was seaweed we could count with our hands who could eat. They were the ones with big plots of land that could plant trees, corn, coconuts,” said 37-year-old seaweed farmer Wayan Suwarbawa, who is working with the TNC.
“Even though we’re just farmers, we’re obliged to spread the importance of preserving sea ecosystems,” he said.
But even if other areas — which in most Coral Triangle countries tend to be much poorer — can replicate the successes of Nusa Lembongan, the root of the problem remains with climate change and a growing global population hungry for fish, WWF’s Soede said.
“If you don’t take away the drivers like unsustainable consumption patterns or other influences then your conservation dollar on the ground is not going to be very effective. It’s pretty much a waste,” she said.
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