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.
Category Archives: 2016
Stories of Australian Science and Stories of Australia-Indonesia Innovation 2016
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.
Continue reading Conservation that works for governments, communities, and orangutans
Lemons to keep elephants out of trouble
Rows of lemon trees will be trialled as a deterrent for elephants wandering into rice fields, in a bid to reduce conflict between humans and the giant mammals.
The work is in Lampung Province, Sumatra, on the border of Way Kambas National Park in Indonesia, and forms part of a broader approach by an international group of organisations to help the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Sumatran tiger, the sun bear, the Sunda pangolin and the Asian elephant.
Environment and conservation
• Using mangroves to fight climate change
• Clever spending for orangutans, elephants, and people
• Lemons to keep elephants out of trouble
• Manta rays ingesting toxic plastics
• Bali’s ocean sunfish vulnerable?
• What do indigenous practices have to offer in conservation?
• Conserving the world’s centre of marine biodiversity
• The Australia-Indonesia Centre Urban Water Cluster
• Women in fishing communities
Indonesia and Australia both enjoy biologically rich and diverse natural environments, on land and in their surrounding waters. Despite their unique species and ecosystems, the two countries face many similar environmental challenges—which is why researchers are working together on ways they can be conserved.
Credit for banner image: Sun Wook Kim.
Giving start-ups a fair go
Indonesian and Australian entrepreneurs will have more opportunities and support for collaborative start-ups, thanks to a joint-push by Austrade and technology companies telkom telstra and muru-D announced in May 2016.
muru-D, a start-up accelerator backed by Telstra, has previously lent its support to aquatic drones and a “ride-sharing service to space” via nano-satellites. The support for start-ups includes seed funding, coaching, mentoring and access to a network of industry professionals, from their offices in Sydney and Singapore.
Citizen science recovering volcanic farmlands
An Indonesian initiative is putting science—and the laboratory—into the hands of communities; combining the arts, science, and technology with some basic science lessons for the general public.
In 2014, the HackteriaLab gathering in Yogyakarta brought 40 scientists, artists, and academics together for two weeks to work on existing local community projects.
Continue reading Citizen science recovering volcanic farmlands
Carving out success in wooden exports
Wooden furniture companies in Indonesia have doubled their income after taking part in training courses to boost production efficiency and improve overseas opportunities.
Furniture—predominantly made from teak or mahogany—is one of Indonesia’s big exports. But even in the region of Jepara, known in particular for its carved furniture, the manufacturing industry has been marked by poor production efficiency, resulting in less recovered timber and lower overall quality of furniture products.
Trading in style: students designing shelters for Indonesia’s street vendors
Indonesian street vendors are the new muses of Australian and Indonesian architecture students, who are creating sustainable shelters to help vendors keep trading in style.
Known as Pedagang Kaki Lima (‘five legs’), the travelling street vendors not only play a crucial role in Indonesia’s economy, they’ve also become an icon of resilience and bravery following the January 2016 Jakarta terrorist attacks—where photos of vendors and the meme “keep calm and BBQ satay” were shared widely on Twitter.
Continue reading Trading in style: students designing shelters for Indonesia’s street vendors
Innovation
• Giving start-ups a fair go
• Better shelters for street vendors
• Bringing science to the community
• How did Indonesia’s furniture companies boost product efficiency?
Australia isn’t the only one pushing to be an “innovation nation,” with Indonesia announcing a government-backed ‘1,000 start-ups movement’ in mid-2016.
Signs of the dietary environment
School-aged children are surrounded by messages about food and nutrition, from shop signs to brand advertising. Linguists from Indonesia and Australia have developed a new way of studying how this affects them, using smartphones and clever analysis.
In a project financed by The Australia-Indonesia Centre and led by Dr Sisilia Halimi of Universitas Indonesia and Professor Lesley Harbon of the University of Technology Sydney, researchers used their phones to take pictures of the ‘linguistic landscape’ around schools and their surrounds, in fact anywhere written text was evident.