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| the Cetasi logo, from www.cetasindonesia.org |
My colleagues and I have been involved in marine mammal
conservation in Indonesia for more than a decade now. In addition to our
independent works, we have banded together to improve the marine mammal
conservation practices. Our first endeavour was the establishment of a mailing
list for marine mammal enthusiasts (Marine Mammals Indonesia), created in 2004
when Yahoo was the king of cyberspace. Then, nine years later, we catapulted
our joint efforts further by creating an online stranding database (www.whalestrandingindonesia.com). We have also conducted some workshops (notably, I should
say, the November 2013 national stranding workshop, in addition to several local
workshops). Those workshops required funding, the proposals of which we wrote
either as individuals or on behalf of other institutions (notably the
Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center).
However, we feel that it’s time now to have our own legal
vehicle to conduct our conservation programs. At the very least, it would help
with grant application. Thus, since the last few months, Februanty Purnomo
(Yanti), Adityo Setiawan (Adit) and myself have been discussing the possibility
of legally establishing an NGO fully dedicated to the conservation management
of marine mammals. The NGO will cover, inter
alia, bycatch and entanglement issues, cetacean watching tourism, biological
and ecological assessments, marine mammal protected areas, and stranding
management.
