Mangrove Forest Conservation

Social activity of environment sanitation and Mangrove cultivation has been carried out involving 100 students of the magisterial program at the Mangrove Information Center, Denpasar, on Friday (3/6). This public service was carried out to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Magisterial Program (S2) of Tourism Study Udayana University (June, 7th).

Prof. I Nyoman Sirtha, the Chairman of Tourism Study Magisterial Program said, this social event was aimed to enhance our love and concern on environment preservation especially the importance of mangrove conservation and ecosystem within, particularly for the rare species, because, mangrove forests are extremely valuable to hold salt water and wind, so it will minimize any tsunami effect. “As a coincidence, two of our students are doing for research on mangrove forests, for our program.” he explained.
As explained, generally mangroves can be found within brackish water, which is the meeting of salt water and freshwater from the river. This Mangrove forest is at the estuary from the Badung River, which passes Denpasar City. Miserably, most people who live along the river throw their trash into the river, which causes the trash to drift up to the mangrove forest area and stick onto the mangrove roots.
Mangrove trees have a pencil root, which functions to supply oxygen for the plant itself. The root growth will be affected if it’s covered with plastic waste, and will cause the mangrove to die. For that, the student is asked to clean plastic wastes and plant mangrove seeds. “It expected through education, we can improve this situation so tourists can look forward to healthy environment preservation being well conserved” Sirtha said.
Meanwhile Nurhayati, of BPDAS (Balai Pengelolaan Daerah Aliran Sungai – River Channel District Management Office) Unda Anyar, who has been assigned to assist at the Mangrove Information Center said, the mangrove project was firstly named Development Mangrove Management Project from 1992-1999, then incorporated with the Japanese government’s Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) commencing on the 13 May 2001-2004 named Mangrove Information Center Project.
This mangrove forest area has a width of 101 hectare and the longest bridge of 2 km housing more than 70 kinds of bird species. Many eco-tourism activities can be executed here for example tracking, where the guest will be guided to explore the beautification of the forest and species contained. As well the Mangrove Conservation Group has incorporated several tour agents (JTB and Rama Tour) available with eco-wisata packages and link-tour activity. ”One of the events will be on Mangrove Day (26/7) from 24 – 31 July 2005 and involve many Balinese people” he said. (BTN/Para)