Monday, January 30, 2012

Looking for Alternative Food Sources

Advertising a product called "Jelly Gamat" it appeared in various websites. In the written explanation, this product is the result of extraction Gold-G sea cucumber and made in Malaysia with the claims that "Jelly Gamat" is health food of the 21st century.

Since 500 years ago, the island of Langkawi, Malaysia, using sea cucumbers as an antiseptic. Now, one company is producing it with the neighboring country frills cure for all desease. Starting from diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, to heal burns.

Hundreds of billions rupiah a year the company acquired from Indonesia consumers. "Malaysia, which does not have a lot of sea areas, instead take advantage of sea cucumbers as a source of healthy food. We miss it," said Head of Research Center for Oceanography LIPI Zainal Arifin.

LIPI-logo.
Wednesday (January 25, 2012) last week, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences / Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (LIPI) and the Research and Development Agency for Marine and Fisheries, Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Republic of Indonesia held a national coordination meeting of The Census of Marine Life (CoML).

Many speakers complained about the lack of effort we make marine biota as a source of food and medicine. Though Indonesia's marine wealth, abundant said the Professor of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University (Institut Pertanian Bogor) Rokhmin Dahuri.

From the data gathered Rokhmin, Indonesia has about 35 thousand species of marine life. It consists of 910 coral species (75 percent of the world's total coral), 850 species of sponges, 13 of 20 species of seagrasses of the world, and 682 species of seaweed. Then the 2,500 species of mollusk, 1,502 species of crustaceans, 745 species of echinoderms, 6 species of turtles, 29 species of whales and dolphins, a species of dugong and over 2,500 species of fish.

"Indonesia has the greatest potential of marine biotechnology industry in the world whose value reached U.S. $ 50 billion per year," said Rokhmin, a doctorate from the School for Resources and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, who had been Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of the Republic Indonesian.

Unfortunately, Rokhmin said Indonesia every year instead of foreign exchange loss of approximately U.S. $ 4 billion to import various products of marine biotechnology industries. Starting from the sea cucumber, omega-3, sgualene, viagra, khitin, khitosan, and spirulina. "So far we only export of marine life in a raw state," he said.

This condition occurs because one of them thinking about food security in the minds of the public and government policy. In the view of society, food is always associated with rice as the carbohydrate source. Though not exclusively about food sources of carbohydrates, and not always on rice.

"There should be diversification, do not that's it. So, there are other species in the ocean that can be exploited," said Zainal Arifin. Deputy of Earth Sciences LIPI Iskandar Zulkarnain said, the utilization of marine life as food sources are not independent of government policy.

He exemplifies how government policy can change the diet of the people of Papua before consuming sago as a staple food rice. "Try it from now looking for alternative food security-that of the marine biota." Iskandar pointed out, seaweed and other marine biota.

According to Iskandar, the national coordination meeting CoML not only identify and map the distribution of marine life in waters around Indonesia, but also recognize the potential and introduced it to the public. "There needs assessment, analysis. And research on biota biota-anywhere that has potential as a source of food," he said.

CoML-logo.
The Census of Marine Life is a global research program of data collection in the world's first marine life that involved scientists across the country. Program that lasted for a decade starting in 2010, with the aim of studying the conditions of the diversity, distribution, communities and population abundance of marine life in the past and present.

Since 2010 until January 2011. CoML has record levels of more than 30 species records obtained before and beyond the census and millions more are added from the field work. Included in it is 1,200 new species discovered and described from Indonesian marine areas. 5,000 As for the other species awaiting formal description.

CoML is also supporting the World List of Marine Species, which asserts that, in addition to microbes, there are more than 200 thousand marine species have been formally described. It is estimated there are at least 750 thousand more species will be described. *** [MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI | KORAN TEMPO 3779]
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