Fixing the fishing fiasco
When ordering fish at a restaurant, what goes through your mind? There is the obvious recognition of hunger and attempt to subdue it with a tasty entrée, but what about how the fish got to the restaurant? For most of us, the process of mass fishing as well as its effects on the environment rarely – if ever – enters our thought process. However, for 35-year-old Indonesian Irendra Radjawali, nothing could be farther from the truth.
 Fishing boats in harbor, Photo: Flickr (CC) ifijay Originally from the Indonesian city of Malang, Radjawali – known as Radja by his friends – currently calls the German city of Bremen home. Radja is working on his PhD in Geography from the University of Bremen and performs his research at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT). ZMT aims to provide a scientific basis for the protection and sustainable use of tropical coastal ecosystems.
Raja’s research aims to do just that.
The 35-year-old’s work is part of an emerging scientific field called Social-Ecological Systems, or SES. According to Radja, “SES would argue that to manage the use of natural resources in a better and more sustainable way, we need to understand the interaction between humans and the environment, [a relationship] which evolves over time and space.”
Preventing blast fishing
Specifically, Radja is focusing on the practice of Life Reef Food Fishery (LRFF) for the Hong Kong and China fish markets. LRFF involves catching those fish which live near coral reefs for human consumption.
To meet the increasing demand for fish, many LRFF fishermen employ destructive fishing methods such as blast or cyanide fishing to increase their catch. As a result, much of the surrounding coral becomes a victim of coral bleaching.
“This is a big problem, a very big problem,” says Radja, “A coral takes years and years to grow, anywhere from 30 to 60 years. Once it gets bleached it is very difficult to restore it to health. This is a huge problem since coral is the habitat for lots of species.”
Radja hopes that once his work is completed he can provide a new mode of operation for the LRFF market that avoids this ecological dilemma.
Global work
Although Radja’s research takes place in his native country of Indonesia, in the city of Makassar, his classroom experience takes place in Bremen. The 35-year-old says that although the language is tough to learn, “People in Bremen are nice and open-minded.”
Radja travels back to Indonesia frequently to conduct research. His work involves exploring all factors relevant to the current LRFF situation in Indonesia. Through this, he not only studies the physical effects of the fishing methods, but also the rationale behind why these methods are used.
To do this, he spends much of his time observing the area and interviewing various people involved in the process – from consumers, to fisherman, to the organizations that own the fishing boats.
When his work is completed, Radja will create a model which he says, “will facilitate understanding toward a more sustainable way of fishing by incorporating the facts and the different possible future scenarios. This will be important not only for fisherman but also for decision-makers in the government.”
Traveling the world to save it
Enrolling in the University of Bremen was not the first time Radja traveled to a foreign country on an academic ticket. He began his journey in Bandung, Indonesia, receiving both his Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering and Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Bandung Institute of Technology.
Next, after receiving a grant from the French Government, Radja journeyed to Paris where he worked as a faculty member in the Geography Department of the University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
One part of Radja’s current research involves investigating how the process of climate change has affected the LRFF market. Although only a small part of his current project, Radja hopes that after receiving his PhD, he can focus his attention on this pressing issue.
Currently, he is a member of WWViews, a global initiative by the Danish government to gather thoughts and feelings towards climate change in preparation for the 2009 Copenhagen Summit.
Additionally, Radja plans on continuing his international studies after his PhD and is applying to both the Humboldt Fellowship in Germany as well as the Sustainability Research Program at Harvard University in the United States. It is his hope to work in an environment where he can focus all of his energy on global climate change solutions.
“I have always been interested in working with people and producing something useful for society,” says Radja. Through his PhD research, and ambitious plans for the future, he is doing just that.
www.zmt-bremen.de/en/zmt.html www.uni-bremen.de/index_en.html www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/home.html www.daad.de/en/index.html
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