The regency of Tangerang, Banten, will host a gathering of top local government administrators from across East Asia in October with the goal of exchanging notes on best practices in coastal and maritime conservation.

Tangerang Regent Ahmed Zaki Iskandar announced the event on Monday during a visit to the offices of The Jakarta Post in Palmerah, West Jakarta.

He invited the Post’s editor-in-chief, M. Taufiqurrahman, to attend the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia’s (PEMSEA) Network of Local Governments’ Forum Summit later this year.

PEMSEA, established in 1999, seeks to fulfill the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA), a marine policy framework supported by 14 countries in the region.

The PNLG forum brings together 52 local governments from 10 member countries in East Asia, which regularly sit down together with a secretariat that offers them resources to better manage coastal regions. Regular members from Indonesia, aside from Tangerang, include the administrations of Jembrana regency in Bali and Sukabumi regency in West Java.

“Tangerang regency has been a member of PEMSEA since 2006, and we have taken a more active role since 2013. That is why we were named as host [for this year’s] summit,” said Zaki, who also serves as vice president of the PNLG.

The theme of this year’s forum, he said, would be to “strengthen coastal resilience toward sustainable local blue economies”.

“Local blue economies” refers to regions predominantly reliant on coastal economic activities that try to make use of marine resources for sustainable economic growth and the improvement of the welfare of the local populace.

But often, administrators from such regions are faced with challenges of environmental degradation and a lack of institutional support to solve problems.

Part of Greater Jakarta, Tangerang makes up part of the western front of the Pantura highway, a busy industrial logistics route that spans the entire length of Java’s northern coastline.

For urban Jakartans, the regency’s coastline is arguably more famous for being the site of the fast-growing Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) commercial town development.

But beyond the rapid, large-scale construction in the area, the regency’s 51.2-kilometer stretch of coastline is slowly being chipped away by abrasion.

This dilemma has led to a number of endeavors on the part of the administration, some already recognized as success stories in environmental conservation.

Zaki, who has been regent since 2013, said he hoped to share his administration’s experiences at the PEMSEA forum, especially how it tackled the development of fishing villages, on top of other climate change mitigation policies.

Ketapang village in Mauk district, for instance, has been a particular focus for the Tangerang administration, as it was turned into a mangrove conservation area in 2014 and had its harbor renovated in response to abrasion and the degrading quality of seawater in the area.

“In the early 1990s, [Ketapang] was full of shrimp ponds. But over time, shrimp cultivation was no longer possible due to the pollution in the water,” Zaki said. “We started intensively growing mangrove plants in the area in 2018, over 720,000 of them, and now the shrimp are back.”

After the policy came into effect, local fishermen in Ketapang were able to harvest up to 1.2 tonnes of shrimp every three months from a pond of 1,000 square meters.

Zaki said he hoped to use Ketapang as an example for fishing village development in other areas, including the Marga Mulya, Tanjung Pasir and Surya Bahari villages.

Source:
courtesy of THE JAKARTA POST

by Dio Suhenda (The Jakarta Post)

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