Coral Reef Damage Caused by The Indinurmatalia07 Grounding in Cross-over Reef, Lemon Island of Manokwari - Papua Barat Province

Abstract

The cargo ship, Indi Nurmatalia07, ran aground on 07 August, 2021 at 23.00 at ‘Cross Over’ reef in the Dorery Bay – Manokwari. The interim report revealed that the ship’s officer was not able to control the ship when it left Manokwari port due to bad weather condition when the ship left at 19.00. However, report on the cause of bad weather was doubtful because the distance between the port of Manokwari and the incident site is only about 500m. The vessel was later freed from the reef on 10 August 2021 at 19.00 after disembarking shipload. An initial quantitative assessment of damages was conducted by a local team within the grounding site. Four line transect surveys were conducted, each 25m in length and 2m in width, positioned in the left and right of the damaged and undamaged area. Our initial results demonstrated that a total area of 717,02m2 has been damaged by the cargo ship. The type of coral reef formation is patch reef with medium diversity of coral species (mainly genus Acropora, Pocillopora, Coeloseris, Millepora, and Goniopora) and coral cover. Cross over reef has a shallow reef top (between 3-10m depth), slopes down to at least 25m. The reef is subject to high velocity current that might be unsuitable for coral planula to settle permanently. Coral structures were partly crushed and fractured at the edge of the damaged area but totally damaged in central part. The central damaged site has lost remarkable bottom coral structure and diversity from at least 5 different coral genera. By using a comparison study conducted on ship groundings, the Provincial government would sue the cargo ship and insurance company to pay environmental losses due to environmental based on a calculation which considered damage in relation to the ecosystem, economy, society and ecosystem rehabilitation referring to PerMen LH No. 7/2014.