The Center for Marine Studies, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, represented by Eko Burhanuddin, M.Si., a staff member of the Center for Marine Studies, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, UI, and a coral reef monitoring assessor, participated in a workshop organized by the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas, in collaboration with the ICCTF (Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund), Terumbu Karang Indonesia (TERANGI), and COREMAP-CTI on September 24-25, 2020, in Depok.
Carrying the theme “Preparation of Media and Learning Aids: Coastal Ecosystem Monitoring Workshop”, this workshop aims to publish methods for processing and analyzing mangrove, seagrass, coral and reef fish data by involving marine practitioners in the academic field and UPT (Technical Implementation Units), the majority of which are under the auspices of ministries or local governments.
Several of the presenters presented were experts from marine and coastal ecosystem conservation organizations such as Lamina (Indonesian Seagrass Foundation) and TERANGI Foundation (Indonesian Coral Reef).
Eko Burhanudin, a participant, stated that this activity was very useful for optimizing coastal ecosystem data through monitoring, as well as standardizing observation methods for the three main coastal ecosystems, namely mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs.
“Reef fish monitoring methods are also being discussed because the presence of certain fish species is closely linked to the condition of these three ecosystems,” Eko added.
Several observation or monitoring methods were discussed in this workshop, including standard vegetation analysis methods for mangrove observations, and seagrass.net or seagrasswatch for seagrass using transects and quadrats, and coral cover methods to identify corals and reef fish.
Coral cover methods also vary, such as Point Intercept Transect PIT, Line Intercept Transect (LIT) and Underwater Photo Transect (UPT), all of which are used to identify fish species per coral area (calculated with the help of quadrats).
