UNESCO INDONESIA OPTIMISTIC WOC TO YIELD ACCORD ON MARINE ISSUES

Manado, May 11 (ANTARA) - The chairman of the Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO, Arief Rachman, expressed optimism the ongoing World Ocean Conference (WOC) will yield a global agreement on the world's marine issues.

"WOC is just the beginning and thus we have to be optimistic about its outcome," Arief Rachman said at the opening of a WOC Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM) at the Grand Kawanua Hotel here on Monday.

Through the World Ocean Conference, he said, a joint agreement was expected to be reached to mitigate the negative impact of climate change on the seas around the world.

"The impact of climate change can be reduced by controlling the quality of our seas," Arief Rachman said, adding that UNESCO through Intergovernmental Oceanography Commission (IOC) was taking part in the WOC to make sure that there would be a good coordination on the world's marine issues.

He said IOC had a role to play among others to protect the quality of the seas in Indonesia, to exploit wisely the world's marine resources, and to see if the law of the sea at local, national, and international levels was relevant to environmental preservation.

"IOC also tries to include a number of undersea nature preserve such as Bunaken in North Sulawesi and Raja Ampat in Papua in Natural World Heritage," Arief Rachman said.

He said that through the WOC, the younger generation would be motivated to occupy themselves with marine issues and the government should support them to make marine researches.

"The seas have no boundary and therefore they need joint global coordination," he said.

Meanwhile, Indonesian environmentalists Emil Salim and Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said on the occasion that through the ongoing WOC, the marine issue should be included in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agenda in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

"Through the World Ocean Conference (WOC), we hope the marine issues can be included the IPCC meeting in Copenhagen in December this year," former Environment Minister Emil Salim said.

He admitted that marine issue had so far been given little attention at international meetings on climate change and bio-diversity.

He said that although the seas had great potentials to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the issue was frequently ignored in international meetings on bio-diversity and climate change.

Besides Emil Salim, other environmentalist Sarwono Kusumaatmadja and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi at the World Ocean Conference expressed hope that the marine issue could as well be included in the IPCC agenda.

According to them, the sea has important role in climate stability and therefore researches on it were frequently conducted but the issue was less discussed than forest role at international meetings on environmental safety.