Antara 28 Oct 09;
Denpasar (ANTARA News) - Sea and Coastal Areas Director of the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry Subandono Diposaptono said that climate change could affect the marine tourism, particularly natural tourism in coastal areas.
"When the climate changes as a result of global warming the sea surface would rise so that white sand will disappear because it is submerged with water," Diposaptono told a seminar on climate change here on Tuesday.
He said that the increase in global warming would also bring impact to tourism as it would cause inconvenience in the natural tourism areas.
For marine tourism, the impact of global warming would be the whitening of coral reef and if this happened the condition under the sea would no longer be attractive to tourists.
Besides, this condition will also cause extreme waves that would change the environment into a situation which is not safe or dangerous to the visitors of a beach.
He said that at present the sea water was experiencing an average surface increase by five to 10 millimeters per annum. Although it was small, yet it would impact the convenience of human life if it continued to take place for a long time.
"Besides due to climate change, the water surface increase also happened due to excessive exploitation of ground water that causes the land surface to subside.
Generally, big cities in Indonesia are near to the sea so that we think that the sea surface has risen while in fact it is the land surface which is subsiding," he said.(*)
