Update on the CETASI, stranding website, and NPOA

Humpback whale, Bali, 2 Oct 2007, by Made Sujana (Tanah Lot Authority)

Where have I been for the last six months?? Sorry for the slow update... But I've been swirling inside the bureaucratic world of NGO registration in Indonesia. But anyway, after about six months of navigating the bureaucratic waters of Indonesia, I'm happy to announce that the CETASI (Cetacean Sirenian Indonesia) has been approved by the government, and we are now a registered NGO in Indonesia. Yay!

Our website is online already; www.cetasindonesia.org, but I'm planning to move it to another domain registrar because my current registrar (GoDaddy) is getting a bit too pricey. I also need to add ~ $10 per year per site (I have three extensions: .com, .net and .org) if I want my personal information (e.g., address, email and even phone number!) kept secret from the prying online world. That's too much of a price, and hence it will be byebye GoDaddy soon... 

Anyway... the second news is that we've been doing a facelift to the main marine mammal stranding website (www.whalestrandingindonesia.com). It now includes a more comprehensive database, complete with graphs and filtering system. it will also has a map, but I need to upgrade the package first, so it might have to wait for a few months. So far though, I'm very happy with our database provider (Knack). It's easy to use even for HTML-haters like me, the agents are friendly, embedding to the main website is also easy. I registered our stranding website with Namecheap (very happy about the service) and used Weebly for the web-design and hosting (again, very happy, totally recommended!). I've linked the main website with the new interface just now. The stranding website is still down by the time I post this article, but I hope in 24 hours the website is up and running again. 



The third news is that I've been commissioned by WWF Indonesia to assist the government (Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries) in writing up the cetacean National Plan of Action (NPOA). The NPOA is of course not just written by me; I'm just kick-starting the process by providing the first draft and compiling input to arrive at the final draft. We hope that we'll be able to produce the final draft by the end of the year. The Cetacean NPOA is very important for cetacean conservation in Indonesia, because without it, it's very difficult for the government, international NGOs and even a regional program like the Coral Triangle Initiative to justify their spending on cetacean-related projects in the country.

Later, I will also post more updates on some important workshops and a boat survey to be conducted later this year. Meanwhile, here's hoping that the NPOA will be finished soon, and the stranding website will be up and running soon too!

Update 30 July 2015

I've moved the hosting and design of our Cetasi website (www.cetasindonesia.org) to Weebly. It now has a new interface, and neater look. I guess GoDaddy works well for some people, but I'm not one of them. Weebly gave me more template choices for the Starter Package, while for GoDaddy, I need to get a more expensive package to get more options. 

Also the Whale Stranding Indonesia website is up and running on the new interface as well. Pretty stoked on this whole website development thing! I used to be so scared about website development cos I know next to nothing about HTML. Good thing that there are good website builders out there!