Mapping the Effects of Blast and Chemical Fishing in the Sabalana Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia 1991-2006 A thesis presented to the faculty of the Center for International Studies of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Lauri A. Hlavacs August 2008 2 This thesis titled Mapping the Effects of Blast and Chemical Fishing in the Sabalana Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1991-2006 by LAURI A. HLAVACS has been approved for the Center for International Studies by Gene Ammarell Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Gene Ammarell Director, Southeast Asian Studies Daniel Weiner Executive Director, Center for International Studies 3 ABSTRACT HLAVACS, LAURI A., M.A., August 2008, Southeast Asian Studies Mapping the Effects of Blast and Chemical Fishing in the Sabalana Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1991-2006 (151 pp.) Director of Thesis: Gene Ammarell The overall purpose of this project was to demonstrate the usefulness and cost effectiveness of Landsat imagery in mapping reef damage resulting from the use of two destructive fishing practices, blast and chemical fishing. As a side benefit, the protocol can be used in educational settings where scientists as well as high school and university students can map these unsustainable activities over large areas. The living coral reefs of eastern Indonesia are the most diverse in the world, and they are also among the most threatened by human activity. The long illegal destructive fishing practices of chemical and blast fishing have been so widely used that many of the reefs have been damaged to the point of habitat-wide collapse. This project focuses on the formerly highly productive reefs surrounding a small chain of islands in the Sabalana Archipelago, a group of islands located roughly half the distance between the main Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Sumbawa. Habitat-scale change was mapped in four change images between 1991 and 2006 using the increase in relative brightness as the habitat shifted from coral-dominated to algae-dominated and then to dead coral rubble. The output images illustrated how the damage spread throughout the area as fishermen using destructive fishing practices progressively exhausted the resources. The destructive fishing effects were differentiated 4 from larger bleaching events in the characteristic that they resulted in a patchy increase in brightness over the entire reef. Using this image differencing method, Landsat TM and ETM+ scanners were shown to be useful and extremely cost effective in mapping the effects of blast and chemical fishing in the study site. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Gene Ammarell Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have been integral in making this project possible. First, I would like to thank the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Ohio University and to the COTIM program in Manado that provided partial funding for the project. Thank you to the Center for Coral Reef Studies at Hasanuddin University for allowing me to rent the research equipment. I would like to thank my thesis committee for all their advice in the research and writing: Gene Ammarell and James K. Lein from Ohio University and M. Iqbal Djawad from Hasanuddin University in Indonesia. Many thanks to Jamaluddin Jompa of Hasanuddin University and David Palandro of the University of South Florida who provided additional input. A special thank you to Edow Maddusila and Gusti Hardtiny Kemuning from Hasanuddin University who assisted with the data collection in the field and interpreting. Thank you to Pak Dula and Pak Hamid, the captains of our intrepid jolor-turned-dive boat and to the family of Pak Supriady for their hospitality and who continue to run the research station on Balobaloang Island. Thank you to my professors and to my friends who helped me through the hard times, especially Pichayalak Pichayakul (Pang), Elizabeth Collins, Joan Kraynanski, Mark and Kanokwan (Mai) Mason, Farid Muttaqin, Sandra Nahdar, and Muhammad Chozin. And last but not least a huge thank you to my family, especially to my parents who patiently supported me through many setbacks and always believed in me. Without you all, this project would not have been possible. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5 LIST OF TABLES 9 LIST OF FIGURES 10 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 12 CHAPTER 2. DESTRUCTIVE FISHING: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 14 2.1 Motivations: Why do Fishermen Use Destructive Fishing Practices? 19 2.2 Chemical Fishing 27 2.3 Blast Fishing 31 2.4 Ecological Effects of Destructive Fishing Practices 36 2.5 Economic Effects of Destructive Fishing Practices 40 2.6 Social Effects of Destructive Fishing Practices 42 CHAPTER 3. BALOBALOANG ISLAND: A VICTIM OF DESTRUCTIVE FISHING 44 3.1 Academic Work on the Island 50 3.2 Getting There 54 3.3 The Island and the People 56 CHAPTER 4. MARINE APPLICATIONS OF REMOTE SENSING IN MONITORING REEF DAMAGE FROM BLAST AND CHEMCIAL FISHING 66 4.1 Obstacles to Current Research 67 7 Problems with Current Coral Reef Status Estimates 67 Problems with Reef Status Monitoring 71 Real and Perceived Cost Effectiveness of Satellite Imagery 72 The Advantage of the Landsat Archive 75 4.2 Problems Specific to Remote Sensing in Marine Environments 76 Spatial Resolution Issues 77 Atmospheric and Water Column Attenuation 78 4.3 Using Landsat to Assist in Coral Reef Management Efforts 79 CHAPTER 5. VISUALIZING THE PROBLEM OF DESTRUCTIVE FISHING IN THE SABALANA ARCHIPELAGO 83 5.1 Digital Change Detection 84 Scale of Investigation of a Highly Complex System 84 Detecting Coral Death from Space 87 5.2 Project Objectives 90 5.3 Methods 92 Image Processing Prior to Field Research 93 Field Data Collection 96 Image Selection 100 Image Differencing 101 Registration 102 Atmospheric and Water Column Corrections 105 Change Detection via Image Differencing of the Blue Band 1 106 8 End User Image Production 107 5.4 Results and Discussion 110 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 113 6.2 Challenges and Other Things to Take into Account 117 6.3 Suggestions for Future Work 120 6.4 Follow the Supply Chain 123 6.5 Take Advantage of the Free Landsat Archive 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY 125 APPENDIX A. RAW DATA USED IN CHAPTER 5 140 Satellite Imagery Profiles 140 Locations of GPS Control Points to Register Images 145 APPENDIX B. RAW TRANSECT DATA 146 APPENDIX C. REEF BALL INFORMATION 151 9 LIST OF TABLES Page Table 5.1: Comparison of Landsat TM and ETM+ Scanners 86 Table 5.2: Specifications of Imagery Chosen 100 Table 5.3: Pixel Values for Change Images 107 10 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1: Patterns of diversity in reef-building scleractinian corals 15 Figure 2.2a: An outcropping of live coral within a large area of rubble 34 Figure 2.2b: Another photo of the same “killing fields” of rubble 34 Figure 3.1: Depth chart of the Sabalana Archipelago 46 Figure 3.2a: Building a lambo on Balobaloang Island, June 2006 49 Figure 3.2b: The lambo we traveled on to the island 49 Figure 3.2c: A smaller fishing boat (jolor) at low tide 49 Figure 3.3: Balobaloang Island is sighted 55 Figure 3.4a: Traditional Bugis style house on Balobaloang Island 58 Figure 3.4b: Modern style house on Balobaloang Island 58 Figure 3.5a: Balobaloang mosque 62 Figure 3.5b: Balobaloang elementary school 62 Figure 3.5a: People walking in the intertidal zone at sunset 65 Figure 3.6b: People walking in the intertidal zone at sunset 65 Figure 3.6c: A sea cucumber (teripang) caught in a tide pool 65 Figure 3.6d: A sea cucumber (teripang) caught in a tide pool 65 Figure 3.6e: A sea urchin caught in a tide pool 65 Figure 3.6f: A puffer fish caught in a tide pool 65 Figure 4.1: Southeast Asian reefs threatened by destructive fishing 70 Figure 4.2: Location of the study area, Landsat bands 3,2,1 in RGB 82 [...]... work in factories in cities and then send a portion of their incomes to their brothers and fathers who are fishermen in coastal communities; this subsidization keeps the fishermen working the seas, where the income would not normally be able to support them, and they continue fishing the depleting fish stocks (Pauly, 2008) When faced by declining fish stocks, traditional fishermen who use line and hook... environmental systems and costs are ‘externalized’ to the group” in areas where there is no organization of the extraction of resources (Robbins, 2004, p 25 44) In the case of Balobaloang Island (the area of interest in this study), the fishermen from Sumanga’ Island who use blast fishing say that they give a portion of the catch to the people of Balobaloang, and so there is some benefit to the group as a... DFPs to pay off the debt from the equipment The companies also buy the live catch and pay for the release of the fishermen who are caught and jailed for the illegal activities In such cases, it is the fishing companies that run the trade and are effectively the culprits for motivating and sustaining DFPs The poverty of the fishermen, where they cannot pay for the equipment up front, makes them susceptible... Though not included in destructive fishing, coral loss from anchor damage is also a problem throughout Southeast Asia Many anchors in the shape of grapple hooks are thrown into the water and dragged until catching, damaging coral in the process (McManus et al., 1997; Edinger et al., 1998) The effect is similar to that of blast fishing, damaging the reefs However, fishermen of Balobaloang Island in the study... bout of cyanide fishing on a reef kills far fewer corals than blast fishing McManus et al (1997) also stated that, because of the higher rate of coral mortality and increased inhibition to regrowth from the destruction of the structure itself, blast fishing is significantly more destructive than chemical fishing This point is still debated however, because of anecdotal evidence pointing to the use of chemical. .. trawl fishing, fishing with fine mesh gill nets, and “weighted scare lines” (Roberts, 1995) The research within this paper will focus on the first two methods as those are most relevant to the specific coral reef habitat in the study site, whereas trawling is more applicable to deep water fishing and not used much in Indonesia The reefs around Southeast Asia, and in particular the eastern Indonesian archipelago,. .. to be the reason for the loss (Edinger et al., 2000) The illegal destructive fishing practices in the region endanger 56% of the region’s reefs (Burke et al., 2002, p 29), and chemical and blast fishing are more common in parts of eastern Indonesia (Edinger et al., 2000) These losses are estimated to add to the total loss of the world’s coral reefs of about 60% by 2030 (Wilkinson, 2000, cited in Spurgeon,... However in communities which rely on the reef ecosystem for their food, there are even more destructive activities killing the coral during the fishing activities themselves, blast and chemical fishing To offset such destructive fishing practices and in planning for future rehabilitation, researchers have pointed to the need for increased monitoring efforts (Tun et al., 2004) Only a small portion of reefs... said that they prefer sandy areas because anchors can get caught in the coral and are very difficult to dislodge (Ammarell, personal communication) 2.4 Ecological Effects of Destructive Fishing Practices In a comparison of the two destructive fishing methods chemical and blast fishing, Pet-Soede and Erdmann (1998) observed that chemical fishers in Indonesia are “quite sparing in their use of cyanide”... in- depth background on the use of the two destructive fishing practices, the study site, and marine remote sensing Chapter 2 focuses on the motivations of the fishermen for using destructive fishing practices in general and the ecological, economic, and social consequences of these activities It is important to note that destructive fishing has wide ranging effects and does not only impact the reefs Chapter . 2008, Southeast Asian Studies Mapping the Effects of Blast and Chemical Fishing in the Sabalana Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1991-2006 (151 pp.) Director of Thesis: Gene Ammarell The. Mapping the Effects of Blast and Chemical Fishing in the Sabalana Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia 1991-2006 A thesis presented to the faculty of the Center for International. productive reefs surrounding a small chain of islands in the Sabalana Archipelago, a group of islands located roughly half the distance between the main Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Sumbawa. Habitat-scale