NOAA's Reporter's Coral Reef Tip Sheet
August 4, 1997 - Week 31

Komodo National Park (KNP), home of the legendary Komodo dragons, contains three large islands (Komodo, Rinca, and Padar) and many smaller islands. Although the dragons are the main attraction of KNP, the park also encompasses one of the world’s most biodiverse marine areas. An estimated 1,000 fish species, 253 reef-building coral species, 70 sponge species, in addition to dolphins, turtles and whales can be found within the 173,000 hectares of KNP.

Unfortunately, fishermen engaged in reef-destructive fishing practices are damaging and depleting KNP marine resources at a rapid rate. Blast fishing is the most destructive of these practices and has already damaged 52% of the coral reefs in and around KNP. Dynamite or homemade bombs, thrown from boats or remotely-detonated from a safe distance, not only kill large numbers of fish and other marine organisms in the vicinity of the blast, they also destroy the physical structure of coral reef ecosystems. This physical structure, composed primarily of the calcium carbonate skeleton excreted by thin layers of living coral tissue, is critical to the functioning of coral reef ecosystems and other coastal processes. It can take hundreds of years for nature to rebuild the physical structure of a coral reef after it has been reduced to rubble by fishermen using explosives.

At the request of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) assists KNP authorities with marine resource management plan development and implementation. Recognizing that local support is essential to conservation success, TNC works closely with villagers to achieve the ambitious goal of protecting the KNP’s marine ecosystem. In 1996, TNC established a field office in Komodo, and has developed a comprehensive strategy to address destructive fishing practices in and around KNP. To deal with blast fishing, TNC helped form an enforcement team consisting of KNP managers, police, and fishermen. Since the team’s inception in 1995, blast fishing has declined by more than 80%.

This tremendous success in combatting blast fishing in KNP has, unfortunately, been balanced by an increase in the practice of meting. Meting is a reef-destructive fishing practice that involves the indiscriminate removal of all edible organisms from coral reefs at low tide. Corals and other organisms are trampled in the process and destroyed due to the use of metal crow bars to dislodge clams, abalone, and other marine invertebrates. According to Jos Pet, Project Leader of TNC’s Komodo Field Office, the dramatic surge in meting now represents the most urgent threat to the KNP’s marine resources.

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