The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry is creating opportunities for partner involvement in the management of conservation areas through the blended finance scheme, which includes the provision of grants and blue bonds.
The effort is aimed at encouraging the adoption of the sustainable blue economy concept in Indonesia.
The ministry is offering investment opportunities through healthy sea-based conservation partnerships and cooperation on managing conservation areas in six quota-based fishing zones, whose management and maintenance would involve coastal communities, director general of marine spatial management at the ministry, Victor Gustaaf Manoppo, informed.
“Investment through cooperation and partnerships in conservation areas will offer employment for local communities to improve their welfare, and the funding will be allocated for the development and operation of marine monitoring technology,” Manoppo said at a meeting entitled “Blended Finance to Advance Sustainable Ocean Management for Conservation and Production” in Bali, held as a part of G20 meetings, which took place from November 13 to 17, 2022.
Blended finance is an optimal financing scheme that combines several funding sources for a project, such as the government budget, the private sector, donors, and others.
Indonesia will expand its conservation area to 30 percent of the total sea area, with the potential to increase blue carbon storage in mangroves and seagrasses to 188 million tons, he informed. This expansion would help protect marine assets worth US$21.5 billion.
It would be in accordance with the policy issued by Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono with the five ministerial priority programs for supporting the blue economy.
The programs cover the expansion of marine conservation, quota-based measurable fishing, the management of marine, coastal, and inland cultivation, the sustainable management of coasts and small islands, and the management of plastic waste in the sea.
Source: Antara News