MANGROVE – SHRIMP PONDS – KARIMUNJAWA NATIONAL PARK

Aerial image of clear-cut mangrove forest in Cikmas Block, Legon Lele Resort, STPN II Karimunjawa, Karimunjawa National Park, for intensive shrimp ponds construction (document of Centre of Karimunjawa National Park)

MANGROVE – SHRIMP PONDS – KARIMUNJAWA NATIONAL PARK

Isai Yusidarta, ST., M.Sc., Sutris Haryanta, S.H., Yusuf Syaifuddin S.Bio., M.A., Nugroho Dri Atmojo, SP., Mulyadi dan Agung Setiyadi - Office of Karimunjawa National Park

Translator: Anninda Nurul Islami – Directorate of Settlement of Environmental Dispute, Ministry of Environment and Forestry

Karimunjawa Island consists of 27 small islands, each island is less than 2.000 km². Theoretically, there are some characteristics of small islands in Karimunjawa Island, they are 1). The small islands are situated far from the mainland; 2). The existence of small islands is influenced by coral reef, mangrove forest, and seagrass as the most common ecosystem in the islands; 3). The small islands are vulnerable to environmental changes lead by human activities or natural disaster; and 4). Lack of raw water resources became another characteristic of the small islands since the islands do not have groundwater basin and food plantation.

Suryati and friends (2009) had done a research about the changes of mangrove forest area in Pulau Kemujan National Park Karimunjawa. This was related to the existance of small island influenced by mangrove ecosystem in Karimunjawa Island. In her research, Suyarti and friends (2009) stated that in 1991 the outspread of mangrove forest in Kemujan Island was 2.815 hectare and it increased approximately 0,02 hectare/year until 2001. Up until 2009, mangrove forest in Kemujan Island was recorded about 4.052 hectare. This showed that mangrove forest area grew about 0,14 hectare/year from 2001.

The meaning of numbers above was to show that there was possibility of expanding the area of mangrove forest in Kemujang Island. Developing new land would be a good potential, as known that mangrove is a sediment trap that can deposit dissolved material in water. In the future, the land around mangrove forest enlarge gradually, particularly Kemujan Island.

Related to a reborn of vannamei shrimp ponds, is it necessary to outlaw the shrimp culture in Karimunjawa? Does mangrove ecosystem in Subdistrict Karimunjawa will only function as a conservation area? We need to look back to period 1 of shrimp pond and the comparison to other ponds in other areas.

Mangrove profile in Kemujan and Karimunjawa

            Mangrove profile in Kemujan and Karimunjawa in 2009 can be seen in image 1 that showed the density class of mangrove forest in Karimunjawa in 2009. From this picture, we can estimate:

First. Kemujan Island and Karimunjawa have a low-density mangrove ecosystem, except in the strait that set appart Kemujan Island and Karimunjawa.

Mangrove ecosystem in the two biggest lands in Karimunjawa were not influenced by the flow of raw water from river regularly. The mangrove ecosystem in this place absorbed higher water salinity than other mangroves. It took a long time adjusting to higher salinity and direct sea wave. Morphologically, this mangrove can be seen to grow and develop normally. It did not look like a clump of mangrove. This appeared differently from mangrove ecosystem growing in Thousand Island National Park.

Thousand Island National Park (include small island without raw water flowing in), developed a close-clump plantation method to form mangrove ecosystem as protection to its coast against abrasion. A clump consisted of 10 – 20 mangrove with less than 1 meter gap for each tree. From this technique, Rhizophora grew well, but small.

Image 1. Map of mangrove density in 2009 (Sugiarto, 2009)

Note:

Kemujan Island and Karimunjawa: The flow of raw water usually happened in rainy season. The raw water came from rain falling directly to the ground or the rush of water from lowland rain forest in both islands, moreover those islands do not have groundwater basin.

Second. Mangrove ecosystem in Kemujan Island and Karimunjawa along the shore border catagorized as  a high-density and densed mangrove population

Image 2. Mangrove condition around Rabbit and carol housed in Cikmas. Red line marks the edge of previous ponds of period 1.

Area in front of the red line towards the sea shows condition of high-density and very high-density of mangrove trees that have the same height. The image above looks like green carpet covering the shore. It explains that most mangrove trees stand in front of shore providing numerous roles, such as 1). Mangrove trees help prevent abrasion by protecting shorelines from damaging waves; 2). Mangrove trees trap sediments that can help expanding mangrove forest area; 3). As a buffer zone between sea and ponds, mangrove trees protect ponds that can be damaged by sea wave.

Third. Mangrove ecosystem in Kemujan Island and Karimunjawa, especially in the center and the land, were categorized as average, sparse, and very sparse mangrove population;

This condition was assumed to be occured as a former shrimp ponds impact in periode 1 around 1990. Restoration for this area had been done naturally in a very long time, but the destruction efects of managing giant tiger prawn ponds traditionally were still being faced now in 2018. Image 3 displays satelite image taken from Google Earth used by marine traffic site, traces complete old shrimp ponds and old shrimp ponds that mostly covered by mangroves vegetation. Natural restoration on mangrove cannot fully recover the impact of shrimp ponds in period 1.

        Secondary succession, happened in the center up to the mainland, did not determine the thickness of mangroves. Secondary succession mostly occured at the rear towards the mainland. Secondary succession was formed when mangrove reached its climax state, that was when layer of soil did not get enough water as usual, so that mangroves tree in that area died. As the result, the soil was covered by grass. It became solid land at the end. The sign of the beginning of secondary succession can be seen from a mangrove trek in Kemujan. The grass was widespread amid mangrove tree located close to the sea. You had to pass through the ticket box then walk around 200 metres toward the sea then turn left. The grass around there did not grow normally or was infertile.

Image 3. In this image, shrimp ponds are located in the east of Rabbit and carol housein Cikmas Karimunjawa. It shows the density of mangrove trees visually were average, rare, and very rare.

The comparison to Pantura Central Jawa

Let us examine the comparison of shrimp ponds in Kaliwungu Beach in Kendal, Gojoyo Beach in Demak, Kartini Beach in Jepara, and Sluke Beach in Rembang. Pay close attention to images below.

Satellite image 4 and 5 are the appearance of shrimp ponds in Kaliwung Beach in Kendal and Gojoyo Beach in Demak. At the front area of shrimp ponds in both beaches, mangrove trees are empty (there are not mangrove trees at all). Parts of pond embankment can be seen facing directly to the sea. This condition cause some of the parts of ponds losing its embankment, then finally erasing the ponds completely.    

        There were surely mangrove trees in both locations, but the trees were gather in small spots spreading over an area and very sparse population. Whereas, mangrove trees worked better in a dense population with closesness between the trees and had particular thickness to be a good buffer between ponds and the sea. Both ponds in Kaliwungu Beach and in Gojoyo Beach, were situated far from neighborhood.

Image 4. Shrimp ponds in North Kaliwungu sea shore, Kendal Regency

  Image 5.Shrimp ponds in Gojoyo, Demak Regency

 

  Image 6. Shrimp ponds in Sluke sea shore, Rembang Regency

Image 7. Vannamei shrimp ponds in Central Office of Brackishwater Aquaculture (COBA), Jepara Regency.

In the image 6 and 7, shrimp ponds are located near densely populated neighbourhood, even packed with industrial activities as there is a harbour, Tanjung Bonang in Sluke and COBA in the center of Jepara City. Ponds in COBA Jepara had been surrounded by densely populated neighbourhood and various industrial activities that produced any kind of waste, such as household waste, small and middle industries waste, organic waste from timber business (wood carving), and many more. In Sluke Beach and COBA Jepara, shrimp ponds had not had mangrove ecosystem any more. For COBA Jepara’s ponds, sea water inlet came from a waterway.

In Sluke Beach, the north, west, and east part of shrimp ponds were connected to the sea. Meanwhile, the south part had been surrounded by household activities, fish processing industries, and coal transporting activities in Tanjung Bonang Harbour for the necessity of electric steam power plant in Rembang.

In conclusion, both shrimp ponds in Sluke, Rembang and COBA Jepara did not have mangrove ecosystem. This became a distinctive feature of north beach of Central Java before shrimp ponds existed.

Conditions of Shrimp Pond Business in Compared Areas

Based on satelite images observation and data from many sources, shrimp ponds location of four compared ares can be explained in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparison of shrimp pond conditions in Kaliwungu, Gojoyo, Sluke, dan COBA Jepara

No	Objects	Locations
		Kaliwungu	Gojoyo	Sluke	COBA
1	2	3	4	5	6
1.	Types of ponds	Traditional	Traditional	Intensive	Intensive
2.	Cultivated Biota	Vanname and Milkfish	Vanname and Milkfish	Vanname	Vanname
3.	Owner	Investor‑1	Investor1	Investor1	Investor2
4.	Management	Local Comunities3	Local Comunities33	Local Comunities33	Investor2
5.	Authorization	RFBB4	RFBB 4	RFBB 4	RFBB 5
6.	Present Risk	Abrasion	Abrasion	Abrasion and indusrty waste	Household waste
7.	Future Risk	Indusrty waste	Agricuture waste	Saturated land	Investment load
8.	Front part of the ponds6	Normally working	Normally working	Normally working	-
8.	Rear part of the ponds7	Lack of proper care	Normally working	Abandon	Normally working
9.	Tenur changing	Factories  (KIR)8	-	Factories	Residence & household industries
10.	Investment condition	Working	Working	Collapse	Working

Note:

1 : personal investment and fund

2 : government institution on aquaculture education and training funded by state budget

3 : local communities

4 : permition given to person who run small fish cultivation

5 : institutional permit except for Fishery Business License

6 : ponds located in seashore

7 : ponds located near land

8 : Kendal Industries Region (KIR)

Based on table 1, shrimp ponds in Sluke Beach started to fail and the investors had left them alone. The investors were RFBB holder in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of Marine Affair and Fisheries Number 49/Permen-KP/2014 concerning Fish Cultivation Business. This condition was driven by saturated water as the means of shrimp pond and the soil around the ponds. Saturated water here meant water had been polluted by waste disposal ponds after crop and the remain of industrial production developed around Tanjung Bonang harbor, Sluke. This caused diseased shrimp that lead to production failure. Investor and management experienced great lost.  

The use of intensive ponds methode became the last solution to redesign the unhealthy environmental condition. This unhealthy condition meant there was no mangrove ecosystem that can be a buffer filter to the useless compounds discharged from ponds around the area and household and industrial waste.

The consequences that might appear by implementing intensive ponds was the increasing of production cost. The cost of intensive ponds method can be higher than traditional ponds method. If the increasing of production cost was not followed by the increasing of shrimp price in the market, BCR calculation would be small. This condition threatened investors and managers since they cannot get benefit from this business. In fact, shrimp ponds in Sluke seashore had experienced this phenomenon. Most of its investors and managers moved their investment to Karimunjawa Island.

Box 1. A news report on the shifting of shrimp ponds in Kaliwungu into industrial area and the selling of locals shrimp ponds for industrial activities in Kendal Industrial Area.

Kaliwungu shrimp ponds used traditional ponds method. The ponds were pushed by the necessity of industrial area development, that was Kendal Industrial Area (KIA). The land shift occurred because of unproductive land. As you can see in Table 1, ponds in the rear area had been abandoned by its workers as a result of the falloff BCR calculation of traditional ponds method. The ponds did not give any advantages. On the other hand, developing intensive ponds method required more resources and different managing abilities because this method was different from traditional one. This fact letter was used by the local government as the basis decision for establishing industrial area. Industrial area had been planned since 2014 and had been officially approved on 14 November 2016. The construction would be done gradually. Hopefully, in 2021 the former area of shrimp ponds will have changed completely into an 860-hectare industrial area.

The Missing Island in Semarang

Related to a reborn of  vannamei shrimp ponds, is it necessary to outlaw the shrimp culture in Karimunjawa? Does mangrove ecosystem in Subdistrict Karimunjawa will only function as a conservation area?

To answer the questions above, let us looked back to history of sinking island, Tirang Island in north coastal of Semarang City. The story was taken from an electronic mass media and a blog below. The story of Tirang Island was republished 6 months ago in JATENGTODAY.com (green circle). These important points in the news, all in red circles, can be a source for us to learn and to consider about other small islands, particularly in Karimunjawa Island.

Box 2. News about sinking island, Tirang Island in North Coastal of Semarang City

            At the beginning, Tirang Island was the iconic tourism place in north Semarang, well-known for its mangrove forests. Many kinds of mangrove trees grew well and had important ecological role, and it became living place of many kinds of birds and biota of marine that can be watched by tourists visiting this island by boat. Tourism activities certainly provided locals with livelihood.

Tirang Island as a small island faced a great pressure, in particular 1). Half of mangrove ecosystem was being cut down then the land was used for shrimp and milkfish ponds; 2). Abrasion caused by damaging wave sank down the land, it had been eroded by the sea; 3). Industrial waste seriously damaged environment. It poisoned mangrove area in Tirang Island.

What happened to Tirang Island proved that the existence of small islands were supported by mangrove ecosystem, and it was vulnerable to environmental changes, likely human and nature activities. Mangrove forests vanished in Tirang Island because of the development of shrimp ponds on half of mangrove forest area, industrial waste, and abrasion.

How about Kemujan and Karimunjawa?

Kemujan and Karimunjawa had their own difficult phases throughout 1990 until 2000, namely 1). Mangrove trees cutting down for tiger prawn ponds; 2). Mangrove trees cutting down for settlement; 3). Waste from traditional ponds method for Tiger prawn cultivation; 4). Abrasion caused by waves.

At the time above, pressures on coastal area in Kemujan and Karimunjawa Island still can be tolerated. Mangrove ecosystem had shown their resilience, though they needed decades or 17 years at least to fix themselves, started in around 2000. It was when tiger prawn ponds began to collapse. The resilience of mangrove trees in Kemujan and Karimunjawa Island caused natural restoration of previous shrimp ponds. (look at sub-chapter – Mangrove Profile in Kemujan and Karimunjawa Island, the data were taken in 2009 and google satellite image in 2017).

Kemujan and Karimunjawa Island pressure had already begun again in 2017. That is what I called as a reborn of shrimp ponds. The pressures namely: 1). cutting down mangrove trees that had encountered excellent resilience through natural restoration; 2). Cutting down mangrove trees for tourism; 3). Intensive shrimp ponds waste; 4). Sand mining in coastal area; and 5). Damaging waves (abrasion).

When shrimp ponds reborn happening, the preasure was getting harder. Why? Intensive ponds were characterized by using 100% synthetic fodder, plastic sheeting for separating base soil, waterwheel for rising disolved oxygen, siphon for clearing out mud and remain indigestible fodder and ponds washing after crop (saponin:organic pestiside).

This condition above will produce highly damaging waste capacity for the environment.

Why did the environment have a high damaging waste capacity? The key was the using of sythetic fodder. The waste of shrimp pond was fodder remain and feces. Fodder remain was organic element that can disturb the balance of marine ecosystem. Acumulation of organic element in marine environment (mangrove ecosystem and sea) increased algae population (blooming algae) that caused marine condition anoxigen. This can disturb other marine biota comunity causing  death.

Shrimp pond waste also trigger the apperance of reduced compuond such as NH₃, CH₄, H₂S that had toxic quality. It can kill all of the creatures include fish, macrobenthos, and mangrove trees.

The danger of shrimp ponds reborn was not only endangered the existence of Kemujan and Karimunjawa as small islands but also endangered mangrove ecosystem inside or outside conservation area. Final threat for Karimunjawa National Park management, as:

1.   Tourism industry will shut down

The beauty of coral reef and the variety of fish were the main tourism attractions. The damage of these attractions would give impact for tourism industry in Karimunjawa. This would reduce water quality for water activities, such as snorkeling and diving, improper condition based on Regulation of Minister of Environment.

Damaging fishery environment in traditional zone would lead to the damaging tourism industry in Karimunjawa. Fishery in traditional zone fulfilled the needs of fish for tourists and local comunities.

2.   The disappearance of coast until the sinking of Karimunjawa and Kemujan islands

Mass death of mangrove trees increased abrasion opportunities in the coast, because the coast had lost its ability to diminish waves and as a sediment trap without mangrove trees.

Image 8. Flowchart of impacts of intensive ponds for Karimunjawa National Park.

Meanwhile, for fishermen living in North Java Beach, condition pictured in above flowchart will effect the loss of germplasm as fisheries natural resources. Through continually socialization done by Bureau of Karimunjawa National Park officers, fishermen in north beach of Central Java had acknowledged that waters area in Karimunjawa National Park was conservation region. Stakeholders used a spillover of fish by catching it outside of conservation region. Inside of KNP, there was only traditionally fishery zone. Local comunities were allowed togo fishing as long as they used environmentally friendly method and equipment.