Marine and Coastal Resources Management

Abstract

Abstract Indonesia, with a population of over 182 million people, is the world’s largest archipelagic state (KLH 1992). With over 17,500 islands (only 6000 inhabited) and one of the longest coastlines in the world, Indonesia has jurisdiction over 5.8 million km2 of tropical seas within its Exclusive Economic Zone (Polunin 1983; KLH 1992; Sloan and Sugandhy 1993). The marine environment that forms almost 80% of the archipelago exhibits high physical, chemical and biological diversity. Salm (1984) identified 48 different types of marine and coastal habitats using a simple generic classification system. Marine and coastal resources and activities account for about 25% of Indonesia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ o\ Ilion people, about 7.5% of the total population (Riopelle 1995). Even though there is a serious lack of marine and coastal resource inventories, it is nevertheless clear that Indonesia’s marine and coastal assets are outstanding (Polunin 1983; Bailey et al. 1987;