The Indonesia whale stranding website is up and running!

It's been quite a while, but the Indonesia whale stranding website is finally up and running! Below is the URL:

http://www.whalestrandingindonesia.com/

It also has the Facebook page here! Please like us there!

Special thanks to Stefan Baier and Wong Ee Phin from Malaysia for the pro-bono hard work for the website (well, Stefan is from German actually, but he's now very comfy in KL). Another special gratitude is for Yanti S. Purnomo for data entry so far, and for all who have contributed to the data that makes up the whole website.

Perlukah memberi harga kepada sumber daya alam?

This article is the Indonesian translation of an older article titled ‘Do we need to put a price in natural resources?’ I wrote in September 2012. Happy New Year, by the way. May 2013 be beautiful, healthy, successful and peaceful for all of us.

Teman CI saya Matt Fox mengirimi saya artikel dari website Guardian ini yang ditulis oleh George Monbiot. Artikel tersebut membuat saya berpikir saat membuat judul artikel ini. Apa perlu kita menaruh price tag, harga untuk sumber daya alam? Dan juga, kenapa kita perlu memberi harga tersebut? Tidak bisakah kita membiarkan alam seperti apa adanya?

Dua tahun lalu saya akan setuju dengan Monbiot. Bahwa sepertinya kita tidak perlu menaruh harga pada hujan, pepohonan dan lumba-lumba; kok kayaknya gimana begitu. Tapi sekarang, walaupun saya kurang setuju dengan artikel tersebut, saya tetap merasa Monbiot ada benarnya.

Saya sebenarnya berharap yang sederhana saja, bahwa kita semua bisa hidup dengan alam dengan harmonis, seperti cara Zen. Saya inginnya adalah kebanyakan dari kita ada di tingkat kesadaran kita yang tertinggi, bahwa kita semua faham dan menghargai bahwa tiap mahluk di Bumi – bahkan di seluruh Semesta – saling berhubungan satu sama lain. Tapi sayangnya, tidak demikian ceritanya.

Saya cenderung setuju dengan valuasi sumber daya alam (yaitu: memberikan nilai kepada satu sumber daya alam tertentu), selama hal tersebut masuk akal. Tapi di sini triknya: saya bilang ‘memberikan nilai bagi sumber daya alam’, bukan ‘memberikan harga bagi sumber daya alam’. 

Indonesia will have a marine mammal stranding SOP

Trying to save a whale

On Friday, 14 December 2012, the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries Affairs (MMAF) held a meeting in Jakarta to discuss the Standard Operating Procedure to handle stranded marine mammals across Indonesia. Among the attendants were representatives of several divisions under the MMAF, the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), WWF Indonesia, Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) and Conservation International Indonesia (that was me). The meeting was actually the third meeting to discuss the SOP, so when I arrived, I was already presented with the latest draft. 

We agreed to limit the discussion on the SOP outline. The SOP will be printed as a book (in Indonesian), distributed to various places in the Archipelago, particularly where stranding events often occurred. We eventually agreed upon the following outline: 

Say hi to Lovina's less crowded neighbour: Bondalem and Tejakula

Fraser's dolphins off Bondalem in March'12

When I was doing my PhD in Lovina, I was invited to a talk at the local Rotary Club Chapter. They were excited to learn what I was doing there; but I was more excited to learn about totally new information (at least to me) from an expatriate lady who came all the way from Tejakula (in eastern Buleleng Regency). The lady told me that she and her friends never bothered to go to Lovina for dolphin watching because they had a better alternative: Apparently, they have dolphins too in Tejakula!

I was excited and curious about the presence of another dolphin population in Buleleng, just 50km eastward of Lovina. But I never got to go there. I just never made time. 

Anyway, when I was already working at Conservation International (well, still is), I had several meetings with government officers of Buleleng about Bali MPA Network (more about this in another post, perhaps). There, I gave a presentation on the results of my PhD. To my surprise, a guy came to see me afterwards and said that he often saw dolphins off Bondalem Village in Tejakula (east Buleleng)! This guy (Mr Gede Mertha) is the local fisheries extension officer, by the way, a very nice guy. 

Whale barf and perfume!

I once wrote here about the importance of being able to wrap our thesis in a three minutes talk (just in case you meet an important donor or a related minister in an elevator). Well, PhDcomics had gone to the extreme and made a 'my thesis in two-minutes' competition. This cool two-minutes video on PhDComics.com of Baillie Redfern's PhD thesis about ambergris (sperm whale barf) and perfume is one of the winners.




From the video info at YouTube:

Whale Protected Areas Google Earth

Just a shortie this time. I just found this one online, Google Earth's Whale Protected Areas 3D tour. Very cool and informative! 



Here's what the video information on YouTube said about the project:

Lima kiat untuk jalani dan selesaikan PhDmu

(This is the Indonesian version of a post titled ‘Five tips to survive your PhD’. Scroll down to the previous post or click this link for the English version)

Hari ini saya dapat satu komik lucu banget dari situs favorit saya PhDcomics.com. Komik ini tentang dokumen ‘final’ yang kudu di-submit (di sini tentang thesis S3, walaupun dokumennya bisa dokumen ‘final’ apa saja). Komik itu benar-benar mencerminkan dunia mahasiswa S3 atau PhD, jadinya saya post di sini.

Ini PhDcomic bener banget, tau ga sih...

Selain itu, komik ini juga mengingatkan saya akan ide tulisan tentang kehidupan PhD. Saya waktu itu membuat artikel ini tentang tips bersekolah di luar negeri (bhs Inggris). Ternyata artikel tersebut nomor dua paling banyak dibaca di blog ini. Karenanya, saya rasa penting (ato paling tidak, menarik bagi saya) untuk menuliskan satu artikel tentang kiat untuk hidup dengan thesis PhD/S3 kita.