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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

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

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.

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2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

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.

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2016

Renewable fuels turn over a new artificial leaf

‘Artificial leaves’ are bringing us one step closer to cheap, renewable and commercially-viable fuels that could power your car, house or whole community, thanks to researchers at Monash University.

Professor Doug MacFarlane and his team at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science are using sun, water and CO2 to produce hydrogen and methanol fuels.

Their artificial photosynthesis takes its inspiration from the way plants convert sunlight into energy, and then recreates it in an industrial setting.

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2016

Fishing for food security

Local fishermen in Indonesia are catching less fish. Whatever the reason, it is a significant problem for those who live on small islands in particular, as fish make up about 90 per cent of the protein they eat.

A team of Indonesian and Australian social scientists is looking at how communities adapt to these changes.

Initially, in a pilot project study financed by the Australia Indonesia Centre, the researchers are examining whether there is a link between fishing productivity and feelings of food insecurity in the small islands off Kai Kecil, and if so, whether a weakening of local management of fish populations and a rise in intercommunity conflicts over fish resources play a role.

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2016

Saving seagrass sanctuaries

Seagrass meadows provide food and habitat for everything from dugongs and birds to fish and tiny crabs.

Using maths to protect seagrass meadows and the communities they support .
Using maths to protect seagrass meadows and the communities they support .

Globally we’re losing over 100 sq. km per year due to dredging, coastal developments and runoff. That’s bad news for the animals they support, and bad news for us too, as seagrass supports healthy coastal fisheries as well as acting as a carbon store.

To see how seagrass can be given a fighting chance, Dr Paul Wu at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers and collaborators have put an extended modelling technique to new use, predicting seagrass health and suggests how some modified human activities could reduce the damage.

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2016

Can algae fuel our future?

We can make biofuels with algae, but can we make them commercially viable?

A University of Queensland (UQ) research team is working towards it – and Siemens, Neste Oil Corp, the Queensland Government and others have joined their quest.

The Solar Biofuels Research Centre is one of the most advanced national facilities investigating the development and use of high-efficiency microalgae production platforms.

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