Yearly Archives: 2016

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Fighting the new killers: The Australia- Indonesia Centre Health Cluster

Heart attacks, cancers, mental disorders, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are on the rise in Indonesia and Australia. In 2007 they caused 60 per cent of Indonesian deaths; by 2014 this had risen to more than 70 per cent.

NCDs also account for over 90 per cent of Australian deaths. More than half the country’s adults are considered overweight or obese and a 2014 study found Australia’s obesity rate was rising faster than anywhere else in the world.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Energy

• Putting a figure on the cost of algae to ships
• Better, safer lithium batteries
• Designing the coolest tropical houses
• The Australia-Indonesia Energy Cluster
• An end to Indonesia’s hospital power blackouts?

The geography of Indonesia and Australia—one a densely populated network of many islands, the other a vast continent containing remote and rural communities—can make energy a challenge. Both countries are working towards cleaner, more efficient energy.

Credit for banner image: Nadia Astari.

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

What roles do women play in fishing communities?

Opportunities for alternative livelihoods in fishing communities in Indonesia are being investigated by a team of Indonesian and Australian scientists.

They’re working to understand fisheries and the options for women in coastal areas, while reducing the pressure on targeted marine resources.

Small-scale fisheries are an important source of food security and income in developing countries. Many are also growing into international exporters, but they can place a huge strain on fish populations.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Leapfrogging towards water sensitive cities: The Australia-Indonesia Centre Urban Water Cluster

How can cities grow and thrive in an era of climate change? This is a challenge faced by both Australia and Indonesia. With ever-increasing population shifts towards urban environments, it is crucial to make cities sustainable.

Australian cities are adopting water sensitive approaches. Melbourne Water, for example, has created over 10,000 raingardens. But progress is slow, in part because of the existing massive traditional water infrastructure.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Better ways to conserve the Coral Triangle

Six Southeast Asian countries are working together to better conserve the world’s centre of marine biodiversity, the Coral Triangle, with the hope that this will lead to a more collaborative approach to sharing coral reef resources in the area.

The Coral Triangle sits between Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, a group of countries that have formed the Coral Triangle Initiative. It is home to 76 per cent of the world’s known coral species, 2,500 reef fish species, and the largest area of mangroves in the world.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Is the Bali ocean sunfish tourism sustainable?

Researchers are diving deep to find out more about the ocean sunfish, the Jabba the Hutt of the fish world, that hang out on the reefs off Bali for just three months each year. They’ve become an intriguing tourist attraction for divers, but is this tourism sustainable?

The sunfish head to the reefs from July to October to seek out cleaner fish—such as longfin bannerfish and emperor angelfish— which help them remove skin parasites and clean up skin lesions.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Lessons in conservation from traditional indigenous practices

What can we learn about contemporary conservation from indigenous practices? A West Papuan PhD candidate at James Cook University in Cairns is finding out.

In the Bird’s Head Peninsula region of Indonesia, Freddy Pattiselanno is researching how indigenous peoples’ traditional hunting patterns have adjusted in the face of societal changes.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Rehabilitating mangrove forests may help combat climate change

Twenty hectares of old, abandoned fish ponds have been rehabilitated into mangrove forests in Tiwoho, in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi.

Their efficiency in capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere is being put to the test by researchers, in the hopes the rehabilitation process can help mitigate the effects of climate change and restore the provision of ecosystem services, such as fisheries, provided by healthy mangroves.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Manta rays munching on micro-plastics

More than a million tons of plastic are thought to enter Indonesia’s
oceans every year.

Much of it is in the form of micro-plastics, and that could be harming iconic oceanic filter feeders such as the manta ray.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Conservation that works for governments, communities, and orangutans

The three nations that share the island of Borneo— Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei—could retain half the land as forest, provide adequate habitat for the orangutan and Bornean elephant, and achieve an opportunity cost saving of over $50 billion.

The findings, by a research team led by The University of Queensland with members in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Europe, were published in Nature Communications in 2015.

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