Indonesia Manta Ray Dive Gates Wide Open and Awake
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| Manta & Diver Michael AW |
Indonesia’s
Heart of the Coral Triangle -considered the global epicenter of marine
biodiversity with over 22.5
million hectares and 2.5 thousand islands protected by a network of 12 Marine
Protected Areas opens its gate to manta ray protection. Today Indonesia is
internationally recognized for homing the World’s largest Manta Sanctuary
-totaling nearly 6 million square kilometers.
Travel
Business reported on August 13th on the launch of the new site and
ultimate source of information for Raja Ampat the Bird’s Head Escape portal.
Bird’s Head assures that Raja Ampat is more than just reefs.
Inside the
Coral Triangle its first shark and ray sanctuary located in Raja Ampat provides
strict protection to all sharks and manta rays, as well as other species.
Bird’s Head Seascape works with an unprecedented partnership between coastal
communities, local and national governments, international and local NGOs, and
academic institutions to ensure sustainable management.
The
Jakartapost reported on August 10th that Raja Ampat is “like a rough
diamond waiting for attention”. Raja is formed by four big islands: Waigeo,
Batanta, Salawati and Misool and hundreds of smaller ones. In total the area
covers 4.5 million hectares -80 percent of which is blue ocean waters.
The Nature
Conservancy TNC explains that Raja Ampat is home to around 75 percent of all
known coral species, 1,470 reef fish and still counting, eight types of whales
and seven types of dolphins.
Bird’s Head
marine protected area representatives told Jakartapost that efforts focus on
marine-over exploitation and awareness for new traditions. Local residents top
over the 60 thousands.
In 2010 Raja
Ampat declared its area a shark and manta ray sanctuary. After long years of
work and banning harmful activities Raja Ampat matures working with
Conservation International and TNC.
Bird’s Head
reported that Mark Erdmann working closely with the Indonesia Ministry of
Marine Affairs and Fisheries helped in the development of Indonesia’s new
regulation.
The government
realized through studies and international collaborations that manta rays,
sharks and other species as well as environmental conservation was of value not
only for the regional tourism economy but to sustain the health of local and
international marine environments.
Partners of
Bird’s Head include CI, TNC, MantaWatch and Coral Reef Alliance. With legal
protection the marine area faces new challenges for sustaining and enforcing
the protection as well as managing and studying marine populations and
environment.
“Understanding
where mantas move within Indonesian waters is critical to managing their
populations. Recent work by the Aquatic Alliance, MantaWatch and dive operators
in Bali and Komodo has shown conclusively that reef mantas regularly move
between Bali and Komodo — directly through known manta hunting grounds off
South Lombok. This finding helps focus management efforts by the Indonesian
government toward these hunting grounds in order to protect the highly valuable
manta tourism industries in Komodo and Bali,” Bird’s Head explains.
Raja Ampat is
conducting more studies including tagging of individuals to conclude final
migration and movement patterns of Manta Rays and other species.
“These new
tags provide near real-time data on manta movements, which will be enormously
valuable in managing Indonesia’s mantas…we are now discussing a large-scale
manta tagging program focused across Indonesia in collaboration with
Singapore’s SEA Aquarium and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences,” Raja Ampat
states.
The area homes
hundreds of dive sites just waiting to be visited by the international diving
communities.
