Recently Indonesia has subjected to an environmental disaster caused by man.  A cruise ship was stuck in shallow seawater, creating massive wreckage among the coral reef. This incident happened at Raja Ampat, West Papua on March 4, 2017. It was predicted that the total wreckage of coral reefs reached up to 1,600 square meters. But that didn?t even come close to the real amount of damage caused. After the government made a joint survey with the responsible party, it was discovered and agreed that the total of coral reef damage was 18,882 square meters.

The coral reefs incident happened when the Caledonian Sky ship finished escorting their passengers from bird sight-seeing in Waigeo, Papua. The captain had used GPS and radar, but hadn?t taken into account natural factors, causing the ship to be stuck in shallow water. A pulling boat came to help, but that itself didn?t help move the cruise ship. After some time, the cruise ship was able to set itself free and continued sailing to its next destination.

The cruise ship itself have violated several regulations of the Indonesian Government, such as article 40 (3) of Law 32 of 2009 about the Protection and Management of the Environment, article 7 (2) of Law 45 of 2009 about Fisheries, and many more.

When the news of this disaster was first published, it was calculated that the company had to pay one square meter about 1200 US dollar, resulting with around 1,920,000 US dollar for the predicted 1,600 square meters damage. The money that is demanded would be used to rehabilitate the corals. But for me, even if the sum of money would be continuously added up, the money offered would never be enough. Indonesia has lost something wonderful that takes a really long time to grow as 1 year equals to 1 centimeter of coral growth.

Coral reefs play an important role in the environment. Besides donating oxygen to the earth, coral reefs also serve as a breeding ground for fish, as well as a shelter for them. Coral reefs makes fisherman easier to find fish, seeing as coral reefs are most of the fishes natural habitat. If coral reefs cease to exist, then the ecosystem would slowly be unbalanced. Small fishes would have no shelters thus hunted by bigger fishes, making the population of fishes gradually decrease.

In addition, Raja Ampat, West Papua is one of Indonesia?s favorite tour destinations with breath taking sceneries. The massive loss of coral reefs has caused a great grief on Indonesia. But this incident also teaches Indonesia to be more mindful and appreciative to their territory, making Indonesia take better care of them. Although there is a saying, experience is the best teacher, I always believe that preventing is much better than rehabilitating. Please help share this story to create awareness, because there are even inhabitants of Papua who doesn?t even know about this incident.