Coral Reefs in Indonesia: A Review on Anthropogenic and Natural Disturbances

Coral reefs are among the most dynamic and various ecosystems on tropical ecosystem. They provide a large number of important ecosystem services. Despite their importance, they appear to be one of the most susceptible marine ecosystems. Dramatic decreasing of coral reefs has been reported from every part of the world. Indonesia contains 18% of coral reefs of world's total. Unfortunately the status of coral reefs in Indonesia is already in critical and poor condition. Coral reefs communities in Indonesia are subjected to a variety of environmental disturbance. Threats to Indonesia's coral reefs resources can be divided into two main types: anthropogenic and natural disturbances. The major anthropogenic disturbances on coral reefs in Indonesia are destructive fishing, pollution, coastal development, mining and harvesting live fish and coral, tourism. The natural disturbances such as cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunami and predator also contribute to coral reefs destruction in Indonesia. In my paper I tried to compare between natural and anthropogenic disturbances on coral reefs in Indonesia and raised these questions: (i) how the natural disturbances differ from anthropogenic area (ii) which type of disturbances has caused the greatest impact on coral reef ecosystem. My finding is that both of anthropogenic and natural disturbances give major impact on coral reefs in Indonesia. The important issue here is coral reef resilience could be disturbed by synergistic effects between various anthropogenic and natural disturbances. This phenomenon has significant conservation and management implication. The appropriate management should be conducted to protect coral reefs ecosystem in Indonesia. Mangrove management will succeed only when local people are involved and get sustainable benefits from mangrove ecosystem. Community based management and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) are type of management that can be applied on coral reef ecosystems in Indonesia.