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Future of Coral Reefs

Although Indonesia has some of the most untouched coral reefs in the world, even in the remote parts of the archipelago, where industrialization has not yet reached, the reefs are not free of danger. According to officials of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Irian Jaya, the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea, it is predominantly the reefs, and not the great forests of that island, that are most at risk.

Like forests, reefs are subject to succession. A diverse, well-populated reef does not just spring from the sandy bottom. Once a reef is wiped out, unprotected wave action and current may prevent regrowth from taking place.

In the more developed areas of Indonesia, dredging of channels, harvesting of coral for construction materials, and filling of estuarial waters has had a devastating impact on the reefs. The Bay of Ambon, in the central Moluccas, once had a reef that moved naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace to write: "There is perhaps no spot in the world richer in marine productions, corals, shells and fishes, than the harbour of Amboyna." During the post-war building boom, the coral was dragged up for building material in Ambon town. Today, the bay is a wasteland.