Indonesia to host first Ocean Forum: an ocean REDD?

Manado to Host First Ocean Forum
Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 5 Mar 09;

Up to 15,000 people from 121 countries will soon descend on the North Sulawesi provincial capital of Manado to attend the world’s first climate change forum on oceans.

The World Ocean Conference along with the Coral Triangle Initiative will be held from May 11 to 15 and are expected to give birth to the Manado Ocean Declaration, a definitive statement on oceans and climate change.

“We hope MOD will become for oceans what REDD is for forests,” said Indroyono Soesilo, deputy for the National Conference Committee.

“Where REDD involves carbon trading based on reducing carbon through better forestry management, MOD will do the same through, for example, the preservation of coral reefs,”
Indroyono said.

However, he pointed out that this conference is only the first step toward getting MOD included in the Copenhagen conference on climate change later in the year.

“We need international support, especially from the United Nations Environment Program, and the conference is the first initiative heading us in that direction,” he said.

MOD, he said, would focus on four basic discussions — the impact of climate change on the ocean, the role of the oceans in regulating global climate change, adaptation and mitigation, and opportunities for regional and international cooperation.

Kuki Soejachmoen, executive director of Pelangi Foundation, a nongovernmental organization for climate change issues, while agreeing that marine ecosystems have greater influence on the environment, felt that expectations for the conference were perhaps set too high, and thought there would be international resistance to carbon trading and oceans.

“Yes, oceans do absorb carbon dioxide, but how long they keep it there is still scientifically questionable,” Kuki said.

She said even though there were many carbon trading schemes, such as REDD, the world was still waiting for definitive proof that these schemes actually worked.

“Until now, it’s not certain how much forest can contain how much carbon,” she said. “And oceans are much more dynamic and less understood than forests with regard to carbon.”

Last month, Freddy Numberi, the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said the government should push for the inclusion of the Coral Triangle Initiative in the carbon trading scheme under the clean development mechanism.

“We are hoping that in the long term, CTI can be included for clean development mechanism which is why we need to move right now in preserving our coastal areas so we can get money from it,” he said.

CTI was an Indonesian initiative introduced by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the APEC leader’s meeting in September 2007.

The coral triangle covers 75,000 square meters and spans six countries and is considered home to the world’s most abundant variety of sea life.