Ismira Lutfia Jakarta Globe 23 Sep 11;
Indonesia’s vast wealth of marine life is not being exploited to its full potential because of a lack of taxonomists in the country’s scientific community, experts contend.
Zainal Arifin, head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) Oceanographic Research Center, said there were far too few local scientists specializing in the discovery and naming of new marine species, and those already working in the field were not as highly qualified as one might hope.
He attributed the shortage to the fact that taxonomy was often not seen as a desirable specialization for budding scientists.
However, he said the profession was a much-needed one because new discoveries of marine life were still being made here and unless there were scientists to document these discoveries, the country would be unable to benefit from them — commercially, for food or for other purposes.
“The first step is to nurture human resources in the scientific community who are suitably skilled in marine taxonomy to allow the country to benefit from its marine resources,” Zainal said in a seminar this week.
Dwi Listyo Rahayu, a marine taxonomist and fellow seminar speaker, said the shortage was not limited to Indonesia.
“Despite the fact that climate change raises the very real concern that a lot of living species could die out before we get the chance to study them, the truth remains that the desire among scientists to specialize in taxonomy is very low,” she said.
One reason for the field’s lack of appeal in Indonesia, Dwi suggested, is its reputation as a less than lucrative discipline.
“Much of the research that is done in the country is of an applied nature, such as research into how to make crops more resistant,” she said. “So it’s very rare for funding to be given to proposals for research into biodiversity or a species inventory.”
Suharsono, a senior scientist at the Oceanographic Research Center, said the issue should be a shared concern for the nation’s scientific community, given the wealth of marine life here.
He said Indonesia and the Caribbean were the two maritime regions with the richest biodiversity in the world. Because of this, he said, the country should strive to have at least one taxonomist covering each of the taxons, or categories, of marine species, such as crustaceans, mollusks and algae.
