Mangroves and Poverty: Do they interrelated?

This is fishpond and the house of poor people around it. Formerly the area was mangroves area. This picture was taken from Paojepe Beach, South Sulawesi.

Mangroves and poverty in some cases are always interrelated based on the example and experiences of South Celebes Mangroves areas. For instance at Tongke-Tongke Sub-district in Sinjai Regency, mangroves can be prereserved and maintained as the fishermen in there do not depend themselves on the fishing of fish around their areas. They are actually far distance fishermen and hunting Sunu Fish (in local term) and gone to another sea areas for a long period of time. Therefore no intensive interaction with mangroves in their place. Poverty is eradicated through the fishing work in the middle of the sea. Sometimes this type of fishermen went away from their home for three months and comeback to their homes after this period of time. And those in Paojepe where mangroves have gone they are not fishermen anymore and become fishpond workers. Poverty has destructed mangroves from its own environment as the people in the area and people from another areas coming to Paojepe Beach area to seek income from fishpond and shrimp fishery business. Poverty will cause fishpond and shrimp fishery business become severe as people trying to earn their income from this activities. If society in the beach areas still depend themselves from income close to the beach, there is a tendency if mangroves would be destructed. Not only mangroves, but also coral reef would have similar destiny with mangroves as the people would also destruct it in order to sustain their family life. In order there is a sequence where poverty become the antecedent variable of fishpond or shrimp fishery business activities, and then the fishpond or shrimp fishery business activities will cause the destruction toward mangroves. The higher the poverty level in the area, the higher the probability to the people to do fishpond or shrimp fishery business activities, and the higher the level of these activities, there would also the higher the level of mangroves will be destroyed. Research in several mangroves areas still need to be done as the comparison of this hypothesis.

Save Mangroves from Fishpond or Sacrifice Mangroves for Fishpond

These two related questions always become contradictive questions as both of it in fact have certain interest namely economic interest and environmental protection interest. Both of these interests are the same important as it is required by human needs. Saving mangroves from fishpond means sacrificing the economic interest and prefer environmental protection interest for sustainable living and for the future of human generation. In this situation economic interest doesn't get its priority and it meant that the prosperity of human economic well being is still in poor condition as they can not use the resources available for their welfare. In the longterm human being will be trapped in the poverty as the natural resources can not be exploited for their own living. This is also no good for human welfare itself as living in poverty actually become very miserable and painful. Therefore we as human being should also use a relevant way of thinking in line with the situations occurs and should be faced. From the second point of view, whether we should sacrifice mangroves for fishpond activites, especially for shrimp fishery business it is also requires a careful consideration. Sacrificing the environment for economic interest alone will also become disaster to human being. Examples of it are so many, from flooding, landsliding, drought, etc. and therefore we need to consider the environmental variables in preparing or doing our economic activities. Considering the safety of environment and the interest of future generation should also become our own agenda. We can not destroy this life, either it is our life or the life of future generation because of short-term economic interest. Departing from this question, what we should do to protect the environment and in this context is mangroves?

The Quality of Shrimp Fishery Export from South Celebes

Most of the yields of shrimp fishery business in South Celebes are exported to Japan. Besides Japan some other countries in Europe and USA are also receive shrimp produce from South Celebes. The recent trends in shrimp fishery export from South Celebes is that the rumour if the shrimp fishery export decrese in number as the result of high quality standard applied by buyer countries. The standard is especially related to the pollutant contained in the shrimp produce and chemical substance that the produces have. However, this rumour was denied by the official of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of South Sulawesi or South Celebes. The official said if the shrimp fishery produces from South Celebes were not banner by its buyer countries. The shrimp fishery produces that were rejected derived from Lampung shrimp fishery business. What can we say about the quality and cleanliness in shrimp fishery that are being asked by importer countries, especially toward the pollution of chemical substance on it. It is well known in this country that some irresponsible traders or businessmen had given chemical substance to the food or products they have. They did this just to avoid the loss that they might experience if their products were out of order before it was bought by the consumer. Not only fish and shrimp that have received chemical substances on it, but it is also tofu and chicken as well as some other ready made food such as meat balls or fish meat balls. Not only the foods receive chemical substances in order to prevent them from quickly out of order, but it is also sometimes fish receives the coloring with inappropriate substances that can cause cancer. Indonesian Government through the related authorities has banned these activities and have done either market or products surveillance, especially through the related authority at the Minsitry of Health or in local term called as BPOM (Badan Pengawas Obat dan Makanan) or the Board for Drugs and Foods Control. Does the activities of this government body effective in eradiculate or prevent the practice of giving chemical substances to the food related products?

Shrimp Fishery Business: Angel or Evil.

This is the question we have related this kind of business actually. Why do we ask this question to this type of business? The answer is too obvious to give as all of us have already know that unregulated shrimp fishery business will cause disaster to the environment, especially mangroves environment. If we see mangroves forest in most areas in Indonesia, a plenty of it have gone as the result of unregulated or uncontrolled shrimp fishery business. Either it is in Java Island as a densely populated island of the country or in outside Java Islands which are still having a scarcely populatio, the condition of the environment that relate to the mangroves is still an unhappy news to those who have a great concern to the environment or sustainable development. This is the issue or the problem that we should solve together in order to get or to save mangroves from depletion or destruction. Every effot to replant it should be supported as this has also been done in certain area in the South Celebes. We name Pak Toyib who has initiate this effort to replant mangroves at Tongke-Tongke, a village close to Sinjai- the capital city of a regency in South Celebes Province. He had been given the Kalpataru Award for his effort to do this thing and bring a good name to the village for being a good village or village that has concern to the environment. Go back to the shrimp fishery business itself, could we call it as angel or evil, it does depends on the context where we perceive it. If we perceive it from the environmental interest point of view, we can say that this business is almost an evil to the environment. The evidence is clear as we can see from the case of Paojepe Beach in the former post of this blog. However, if we perceive shrimp fishery business from the perspective of business interest, it is actually an angel, and especially an angel to prosper the economy of the country through making it as export commodities.