JAKARTA — Indonesia is rich in marine and fisheries resources, but how abundant are they exactly? That’s the question a group of experts, led by Annisya Rosdiana from the Fisheries Resource Center of Indonesia (FRCI), an independent think tank with the Rekam Nusantara Foundation, seeks to answer as it works with the government to design what’s known as the country’s ocean account. This new scheme is part of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries’ efforts to improve sustainable marine management and has been in development since 2021. “We’ve become one of the most progressive [partners] in developing the ocean account in Indonesia as we’ve always been involved since the beginning,” Annisya said, adding that the FRCI’s participation in the initial discussions with other stakeholders eventually led to the think tank being appointed to oversee the mechanism for how Indonesia’s marine resources are accounted for and the implementation of pilot projects. Marine life in Indonesia’s Komodo Islands National Park. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Indonesia’s ocean account initiative — putting a monetary value on marine resources, ecosystem services and degradation trends over a given period of time — is also part of the Global Ocean Accounts Partnership (GOAP), an international collaboration with the goal of establishing globally accepted and standardized ocean accounting methods. The Norwegian Statistics Authority, a member of the GOAP, signed an agreement in May 2022 with the Indonesian fisheries ministry to collaborate on technical cooperation on marine accounting and long-term cooperation on statistics and research from 2024…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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