VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named the Karimunjawa area, Jepara Regency, Central Java, as a biosphere reserve in order to increase various efforts to conserve biodiversity in the area.

"Determination by UNESCO at the end of October 28, 2020, is not only Karimunjawa, but Karimunjawa Jepara Muria which includes Jepara, Kudus, and Pati Districts," said Head of the Jepara Environmental Service Farikhah Elida in Jepara, Wednesday.

She said there are other two new biosphere reserves in Indonesia that were announced at the 32nd session of the UNESCO International Coordinating Council (ICC) Man and the Biosphere (MAB) in 2020, Wednesday (28/10).

The submission of Karimunjawa as a biosphere reserve, she said, has been carried out since 2017. The team started by preparing proposals, conference data at LIPI, filming of biosphere reserves nominations, to submitting proposed documents for biosphere reserves nominations to MAB UNESCO, Nigeria.

The data needed, starting from the RPJMD, RTRW, geographical, social, economic, and cultural conditions, letters of agreement signed by the local government and related agencies, and letters of recommendation from the Governor of Central Java.

"The total area in Karimunjawa reaches 746,412.54 hectares," she said.

Regarding the reasons for proposing it as a biosphere reserve zone, including because it is a lowland tropical rainforest, mangrove forest, coastal forest ecosystem, seagrass ecosystem, coral reefs with a wide specification of coral reefs reaching 7,487,55 hectares, and the mangroves in Karimunjawa are mostly true mangroves.

Regarding the reason for the naming of Karimunjawa Jepara Muria, this is to introduce the potential of Jepara, which has the islands and mountains of Muria, to the international community.

She said that the biosphere reserve is an area comprising terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems that are recognized internationally as part of UNESCO's Man and Biosphere Program (MAB).

"The biosphere reserve is a concept of area management that integrates the interests of conservation of living natural resources and their ecosystems with the interests of sustainable socio-economic development as an effort to achieve a balance between humans and nature and the environment," she said. (Antaranews)