The rains continue pelting down on Tanakeke, a small island off the southern coast of Sulawesi in the
middle of the Indonesian archipelago, and the surrounding seas continue to rise. At the water’s high
point, the lower floors of homes are inundated about thirty to forty centimeters deep. Houses, schools
and mosques are flooded from about 6 to 10 p.m., approximately the same duration as the daily supply
solar-powered electricity. With increasingregularity over the past few years, the sea rises a couple of
times a month for three to four days in a row at high tide during the rainy season January to April.
How do people on Tanakeke cope with the rising seas and other signs of climate change? For starters,
the 119 families of the village of Lantang Peo move their belongings to the top floors of wooden-stilt
houses. Pots and pans, bags of rice, kerosene stoves and tools all go upstairs by the end of December.
Haeruddin Daeng Ngenjeng, aged 57, tells a typical story of how his family has weathered the recent
changes in weather. For over two decades, he farmed shrimp and milkfish in aquaculture ponds, a
growing export industry across this part of the world in the 1980s and 1990s as global markets gobbled
up more and more seafood. Imported inputs like feed and fertilizer as well as the capital to build the
necessary dike walls were expensive, but the ponds yielded strong revenues and paid handsomely for
five to ten years. Around the year 2000, a virus arrived and wiped out the shrimp. Farmers who
persisted despite the virus attacks have watched helplessly as sea levels rise over the dike walls that
corral their shrimp ponds, washing their livelihoods out to sea. Haeruddin has switched his focus to
seaweed farming.
Seaweed farming requires considerably less start-up capital. Strong ropes can be purchased at Takalar
City on the mainland and need only be replaced about every three years. The ropes are tied to discarded
plastic drink bottles floating on the sea surface at regular intervals, and carageenan seaweed grows on
the ropes soaking just below the sea’s surface in the tropical sun. Seaweed mariculture requires less
labor and no land, which Tanakeke is sorely lacking. Most villages erect their wooden stilt homes,
schools and mosques on foundations of dead coral and inorganic garbage molded together with cement.
Rather than re-enforcing ever-higher dikes to compete with the sea, many villagers are abandoning their
shrimp ponds and cultivating seaweed. More than two-thirds of the mangroves surrounding Tanakeke
had been destroyed to build over 1,200 hectares of shrimp ponds, at least 800 hectares of which are
now disused. As incomes rebound with seaweed cultivation, more people are also engaging in
restoration of the mangroves. Appreciation of their value as both weather buffer and wildlife nursery
habitat has grown since those benefits disappeared. Over the past five years, 400 hectares of mangroves
have been rehabilitated. Local efforts at rehabilitation began in the early 2000s after shrimp aquaculture
began to wane, and it has taken on stronger momentum since the arrival of Mangrove Action Project
(MAP)—Indonesia.
Local villagers have been cooperating with scientists from MAP—Indonesia to implement Ecological
Mangrove Rehabilitation (EMR), a multi-stage process pioneered by Dr. Roy Robin Lewis in Florida. EMR
efforts tend to succeed where other rehabilitation efforts have failed due to extensive pre-project
assessments of local ecology, hydrology and community. Post-planting monitoring by the community
and mid-course corrections based on their observations also help.
“Quote from Ben Brown or Rio or Ratna or someone from MAP about why EMR succeeds where other
efforts (e.g. repeated government efforts, e.g. too dense, one species, etc.) have failed because it
really takes account of holistic context, rather than simply planting lots of mangroves.”
Mangrove rehabilitation is actually pretty easy – as long as you follow a few basic guidelines.
Unfortunately, most mangrove rehabilitation projects worldwide are little more than publicity stunts,
jabbing mangrove “seedlings” of one iconic species into the mud – usually below Mean Sea Level
(MSL), where mangroves never survive (they live between MSL and high tide). This happens usually
because there are no land tenure issues in intertidal mudlfats. EMR, on the other hand, offers a
process of understanding what species of mangroves should be living in which locations, and
addressing issues which are preventing them from naturally regrowing. In practice that looks like
breaking down dike walls in a shrimp farm and digging tidal creeks to allow an area to flood and drain
naturally. If mother trees are around, mangroves will then grown on their own. If not, we simply
throw in a boatfull of seeds and fruits and let them plant themselves.
Ben Brown – Founder – MAP-Indonesia
MAP—Indonesia adopted the model of field schools, which bring farmers together in training groups of
about 25 to one their methods toward sustainable practice as well as higher yields. Field schools have
been operating in Indonesia successfully since the 1990s, initially focusing on rice cultivation. Pak Abdul
Gaffar of the local agricultural extension office, which works with farmers on implementation of
agricultural technology, also applies the field school model to climate change adaptation. The greatest
adaptive resource at hand is the critical thinking skills of the locals, Pak Gaffar said, and field schools
develop habits of critical thinking.
“Long ago, farmers could adapt [to changing conditions],” Ratna Fadilah, a local project director at
MAP—Indonesia said. “The young generation is more interested in modern education than local
wisdom. Perhaps a better balance between the two can be restored through the field schools.”
With more healthy mangroves once again surrounding Tanankeke, MAP ecologists and villagers both
expect healthier fish stocks, the nutritional foundation of local diets. As declining shrimp and fish
aquaculture for export gives way to seaweed farming, villagers are also practicing more sustainable
forestry management of their remaining and rehabilitated mangroves. Public notice boards encourage
only selective cutting.
“You can see that [mangrove] rehabilitation is working,” said Iona Soulsby, a field ecologist from New
Zealand with MAP—Indonesia who spent several weeks living and working with locals on Tanakeke. She
cited improved hydrology and increased biodiversity of both flora and fauna in areas that were
previously bereft of life. “The community definitely understands the value of their mangroves.
Community education is a big part of the rehabilitation efforts.”
Diversification of livelihoods would also improve resilience of these communities. Teachers as wells as
farmers have become community organizers and field school trainers on this island with no computers.
Seaweed farming seems a viable niche where landscapes are seascapes. Haeruddin Daeng Ngenjeng said
that 20 people from his village of Lantang Peo each year for the past decade can go on the Haj—an
expensive sojourn to Mecca and a hallowed aspiration for Muslims. Even in his good years in over two
decades as a shrimp farmer, there wasn’t enough money for that trip.