Monitoring The Condition of Fish and Coral Reef
In The Core Zone of Bintan Bintan MPA
ecology foundation/08-30-2022
Hello Ecology Friends!
Did you know that..
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Coral reefs are one type of resource that is the target of the management of Marine Tourism Park in the Eastern Region of Bintan Island . The approach applied to this coral reef is total protection of coral reefs located in 23 core zone locations, controlling the use of coral reefs in snorkeling and diving tourism sites, reef fishing sites, and rehabilitation or restoration in several potential locations. This coral reef management requires baseline data and the results of monitoring or monitoring to assess the progress of the results of the strategies implemented to manage coral reefs.
Monitoring the condition of coral reef ecosystems and associated biota is a national program that aims to manage coral reefs and other related ecosystems so that they are sustainable and provide benefits to coastal communities. Monitoring produces a powerful data resource that can be used to determine the status of ecosystems and communities of related organisms and as a material consideration in providing a policy in the long term.
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In addition, monitoring carried out on coral reef fish communities is an important consideration in knowing the related fishery stocks, so that the data resulting from fish and coral reef monitoring activities can support and be used as a basic reference in making and designing fisheries policies. To obtain this data, it is necessary to conduct a survey of the potential of resources or bioecology in conservation areas in the waters east of Bintan Island, Riau Islands Province. The condition of the wind season that blows in August is in the northeast to south monsoon season. In this season, the general water conditions in Bintan Regency have an average temperature of 29°C with wind speeds ranging from 5-7 m/s.
In this season the sedimentation rate is very visible in each core zone or observation station located in the south of Bintan Island. This can hinder the collection of data on the condition of coral reefs in the Marine Tourism Park in the Eastern Region of Bintan Island (Bintan MPA), because the penetration of light entering the waters is hindered by the sedimentation rate in these waters. So that the water conditions can look cloudy in general.
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From the general observations, the condition of the waters in the 19 core zones that have been implemented, on average these areas have coral reef ecosystems. Only 3 observation stations do not have coral reef ecosystems, but seagrass ecosystems. This location is located in the Berakit and Teluk Bakau. Meanwhile, coral reef ecosystems are spread over 16 observation stations or core zones in the Mapur Island zone and the Berakit-Pengudang and Kawal-Teluk Bakau zones with varying conditions.
Coral fish is one of the bioindicators that can be used to determine the health condition of coral reefs, where coral reef fish are associated biota which are generally more commonly observed in coral reef ecosystems, so the presence of reef fish can be used as bioindicators for coral reef health. The reef fish community is an important part in maintaining balance with the various components that make up the coral reef ecosystem where as organisms whose lives are related to coral reefs, the damage or decline in the condition of coral reefs will affect the diversity of species and abundance of reef fish.
Monitoring shows that the coral reef fish communities in the core zone are quite diverse. The sea in Bintan have all categories of coral reef fish species that are recorded in the core zone, both from indicator fish, herbivorous fish, and economically important fish. The indicator fish found during monitoring activities in the core zone of the sea in Bintan consisted of 4 species, namely Chaetodon octofasciatus, Chelmon rostratus, Chaetodon baronessa and Chaetodon adiergastos, where for the two species of fish, Chaetodon baronessa and Chaetodon adiergastos, this was the first time found in the core zone area of monitoring in 2022.
Herbivorous Fish (Scaridae and Siganidae)
The herbivorous fish found in the core zone were dominated by the Scaridae fish family, namely by Species Scarus ghobban and several fish from the Siganidae family were also found. The core zone of the Marine Tourism Park in the Eastern Region of Bintan Island (Bintan MPA), has all the economically important fish families from the Haemulidae, Lutjanidae, Lethrinidae, and Serranidae families. The most dominant economically important fish in the core zone is the Cephalopolis boenak species from the family Serranidae. There are also several types of economically important fish that have just been discovered in the core zone in this 2022 observation, including Epinephelus fasciatus and Cephalopholis formosa.
The condition of the water quality at the observation sites in the core zone of Marine Tourism Park in the Eastern Region of Bintan Island (Bintan MPA) is mostly quite good although some station points have high turbidity on Mapur Island and Merapas Island, while the water quality conditions in the Kawal area have conditions that are clear enough to be able to carry out monitoring coral reef health condition.
Further monitoring is planned to be carried out by the team in October in the core zones at 3 locations in the sea of Numbing Island and Mantang Island, as well as monitoring the condition of the seagrass ecosystems in the 3 core zones of Berkait and Teluk Bakau.
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