| |
MPOI Presses Onwards Bitung to Bali |
|
| |
Story
by Pat Seward Co-author, Co-expedition Leader
Phase 2 of the Marine Parks of Indonesia Expedition (MPOI) got
under way on 12 October 1999. Phase 1 focused exclusively on
the Bunaken-Manado Tua Marine National Park and adjacent areas
on the northern tip of Sulawesi. Now, the focus was on the parks
to the east and south of Sulawesi.
At this stage the expedition team divided. A small group of
11 set out to visit the most remote and distant of Indonesia's
marine parks - Telok Cenderawasih - on Irian Jaya. Meanwhile,
the three boats, Lady Olivia, Leeway II and Agape, set sail
for Kendari, the provincial capital of southeast Sulawesi and
its largest city. Here, the Irian Jaya team were scheduled to
rejoin the convoy and proceed first to Wakatobi Marine National
Park and then to the lonely Taka Bone Rate atoll, many miles
off Sulawesi's southernmost tip. This second phase of the expedition
would end with the exploration of Komodo National Park and then
a well-earned week's rest in Bali.
Having waved farewell to the convoy as it set sail for Kendari
from Kungkungan Bay, just north of the major port and naval
base at Bitung, the Telok Cenderawasih sub-team boarded a bus
to return to Manado overland. The rest of the day and part of
the night we spent mostly in airports or in the air, flying
first from Manado to Ujung Pandang and then on to Biak, the
main airport for access to the northern part of Irian Jaya.
On paper this looks a roundabout route but it was, nevertheless,
the fastest route into the wilderness of Indonesia's most eastern
province. We could have sailed there, but the enormous distances,
and the time and cost involved, precluded this option. So air
it had to be. Even traveling as the crow flies the excursion
added just under 3,000 nautical miles to the total traveling
distance.
Outback in Biak
Biak Island lies a considerable distance off the Irian Jaya
mainland. >From Biak, courtesy of Lieutenant Commander Hasibuan
and his patrol boat KAL Wundi, we explored the Padaido Island
group, one of the sites for the Coremap Project. Coremap is
an acronym that stands for Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management
Program, and is an Indonesian project with overseas funding.
Its purpose is the development of sustainable uses of the country's
extensive coral reefs. The work in hand in the Padaido Islands
is supported by the World Bank. (See Box 1 on COREMAP)
Diving here added to the sum of our experience in that we used
a local boat - a wooden outrigger - which made us appreciate
the relative ease with which dive and photographic equipment
can be handled in a modern boat. On land we made extensive contact
with one of the Papuan ethnic groups which inhabit this western
end of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world.
Our prime objective in Irian Jaya, however, was the Telok Cenderawasih
Marine National Park, still a considerable distance away, south
of Manokwari on the Irian Jaya mainland. The plan was for the
Indonesian Navy to fly us the 166 nautical miles to Manokwari,
where the National Park main office is located, and from there
the Park staff would ferry us another 40 nautical miles south,
down to the northernmost boundary of the park proper. Then exploration
could begin.
Bad weather foiled our first attempt to get there: twenty minutes
into the flight it had to be aborted. Our second attempt was
more successful and we made it to Manokwari but, again, weather
conditions thwarted us and we had to cut short our planned exploration
and content ourselves with exhaustive discussions with Park
rangers. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good: the
benefits of the bad weather included time to visit Biak's Pacific
War tourist sites and, after our aborted flight, an impromptu
morning's entertainment hosted by the officers of the local
naval base and devoted to karaoke, dancing and general merrymaking.
We came away feeling that our entente cordiale with the Indonesian
Navy was growing more cordiale by the day.
One evening, to our great surprise, we were offered, but declined,
a Bird of Paradise. The vendor produced two stuffed specimens
of the Greater Bird of Paradise, in all its gorgeously coloured
and feathered splendour, from a brown paper bag. Some days later
we had the opportunity to see live specimens in a large aviary
in Biak's sadly run-down Bird
Park. 'Sad' is unhappily a word we came to associate with this
part of Indonesia. For part of our stay we were generously accommodated
at the Hotel Marauw, a large and well-appointed resort hotel
built some years back before political and economic crises devastated
Indonesia's tourist industry. While tourists have now returned
to many areas, far-flung places like Irian Jaya which were only
just beginning to attract visitors, are still deserted.
An explosive blowout combined with a puncture, and the absence
of spare tyres on the minibus transporting us to the airport,
threatened to throw the next part of our itinerary off track.
But we made the flight and all 11 of the Biak team arrived as
per schedule in Ujung Pandang in time to meet up with the incoming
team members from Singapore. The key members of the Expedition
- field leaders, scientists, editorial team and permanent boat
crews - remained unchanged throughout the entire trip but other
team members - divers, doctors, additional crew and so on -
changed from phase to phase so, with several new faces to put
names to and 37 pieces of baggage to keep track of, it was forward,
again by air, to Kendari, where the boats were docked alongside
our naval escorts, the ocean tug KRI Soputan and the elegant
tall ship KRI Arung Samudera.
What's Wakatobi?
One hundred and sixty nautical miles and 23 hours later we anchored
off Pulau Tolandono, one of the smaller islands in the Tukang
Besi archipelago. The park here consists of the four main islands
- Wanci Wanci, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko -together with a
number of smaller adjacent islands and patches of coral. The
name Wakatobi is derived from the first syllable of the name
of each of the four principal islands; it is also the name by
which the local people often refer to the archipelago as a whole.
For the duration of our stay in Wakatobi, our shore base was
at the Wakatobi Dive Resort where we enjoyed the gracious hospitality
of resort owners and developers Ren�e and Lorenz Mader. Diving
and exploration aside, we visited the Operation Wallacea marine
centre on Pulau Hoga, and Sampela, a fishing village on Kaledupa.
Operation Wallacea is a not-for-profit organisation which promotes
conservation by training volunteer naturalists and divers to
help biologists map remote areas of rainforest and coral reef
in the Wallacea region. (See Boxes 2 & 3 on Wallace and Operation
Wallacea)
In Sampela, just across the water from Pulau Hoga, the Bajau
inhabitants - once nomadic but now settled into stilt houses
built over the reef flats - eke out their existence by fishing
and trading fish with the non-Bajau islanders within the Park.
Fish is exchanged principally for rice and fresh water. Attempts
are currently being made to wean the Bajau away from their traditional
fishing grounds and methods, and to introduce them to different
forms of fishing in deep water away from the reefs. It is hoped
that these efforts will bring them a better financial return
and, at the same time, reduce the catch of reef fish which are
declining because of destructive methods and over fishing.
In the meantime, the diving and scientific teams were at work
checking out the underwater scene. The numerous dive sites within
Wakatobi have only recently been 'discovered' by the diving
community, and published accounts of the diving - many of them
available on the Internet - are almost all ecstatic. Our own
experiences confirmed the general good health of the reefs with
extremely good coral cover and fish life in many places, even
at 20 metres. However, some areas show signs of being damaged
by destructive fishing methods and are nothing more than coral
rubble and sand.
The arrival of the Expedition in Wakatobi caused great excitement.
Three small Singaporean boats filled with foreigners, two Navy
vessels - one a large modern ocean-going tug, the other a graceful
sailing boat - and their full complement of officers and men,
and our companion research ship, Heraclitus, a strange-looking
ferro-cement junk also with a multi-national crew - did not
go un-noticed in any corner of the Park. (See Heraclitus sidebar)
Nor did it go unmarked. In Waha village on Pulau Tomia, in front
of an audience comprising the MPOI team, Navy personnel, Park
rangers, village elders, and every villager not involved in
the ceremonies, speeches of welcome and thanks were made and
gifts were exchanged. Troupes of children danced and sang for
us, a guided walkabout took us on a tour of the village, and
the local people demonstrated what were 'handicrafts' to us
but normal day-to-day activities for them. We sailed away in
the sunset to the farewell cheers of seemingly hundreds of children,
humbled that our presence could spark such kindness and overjoyed
that our mission could rouse such enthusiasm.
next... |
|
|
|
