In response to the problem in 1995, UNESCO, with scientists from P30-LIPI and ITI, conducted a review of what has been happening to the Bay's coral reefs. The review repeated a similar survey which had been conducted 10 years earlier, allowing scientists from the three organisations to see how much the islands and reefs had been transformed during that period of rapid economic and industrial growth in Jakarta.
The results of the second survey indicated that the condition of the coral reefs in Pulau Seribu is continuing to decline, to the point that some islands have totally disappeared (see Fig. 1). Part of the problem of coral reef degradation is beyond our direct control, in that global warming and the El Nino effect have led to changed rainfall and runoff patterns and longer "dry-seasons" in Indonesia.
Another part of the problem, however, is not beyond our control. Many of the causes of erosion and reef degradation are related directly to human behaviour. These are the so-called ‘anthropogenic perturbations’ that affect the structure and health of the coral reef ‘community’. They include archaic waste disposal systems and unsustainable resource management practices which lead to:
- deposition of rubbish and sedimentation on the reefs,
- physical destruction of reefs by fish bombing, cyanide fishing, coral mining, and dredging, and
- decreasing water quality through industrial pollution and nutrient enrichment.
The worsening condition of coral reefs thus goes hand in hand with the unsustainable utilisation of resources by local fishermen and and specimen collectors, and by the developers of private resorts, as well as the improper or inadequate disposal of waste by industry and local government authorities.