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| A Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera edeni) we encountered off the Uluwatu Temple, Bali, November 2015 |
Since this is the last day of the
year, I thought I’ll just write myself some pointers of what I did during the
second semester of 2015. Starting with July-August where my colleagues and I
were trying to set up CETASI, real pain in the admin. I have to credit Yanti
Purnomo as the star in navigating the bureaucratic waters in Indonesia, but
Adityo Setiawan, Jaya Ratha and Erdi Lazuardi also provided tremendous support.
August saw me returning to Bali
for the Cetacean National Plan of Action (NPOA) meeting. It was a productive meeting; I assisted
WWF Indonesia and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to build up the early
version of the document. So far, the document includes issues such as bycatch,
tourism, seismic and acoustic, ocean noise, alternative livelihood, captivity and
Marine Mammal Protected Areas. Kudos to Sarminto Hadi, Miasto Yudha and team for pulling off the meeting. We also had our first stranding training
workshop for the expatriates in Bali at Seminyak with Whale Stranding Indonesia
and Soul Surf Project Bali. Well, not just for the expats, for we also had
local participants (and a girl flying from Sabah Malaysia just for this
training!), but it was definitely the first English-speaking training that I delivered,
and I actually enjoyed it. The CETASI also had our first annual meeting (at my
father’s place in Bali, actually), and we carry with us a list of homework to
be done... which hasn’t all been done...(palm/face).
