Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has called for national and international cooperation and research to realize the goal of making oceans around small islands clean, healthy, resilient, and productive.
“The research team is targeting a short-term goal, which is the establishment of multidisciplinary research networks and cooperation, both nationally and internationally,” a researcher at BRIN’s Community and Culture Research Center, Agus Heri Purnomo, informed during a workshop on the “Study of Small Islands” here on Thursday.
Researchers will also push for ensuring the availability of scientific information, which can be used as the basis for formulating policies on the sustainable use of marine resources within the framework of the blue economy, and as Indonesian researchers’ contribution to the “Decade of Ocean Science,” he said.
The “International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development or the Decade” seeks seven outcomes by 2030, namely oceans that are clean, healthy, resilient, productive, predicted, safe, accessible, inspiring, and engaging.
An island is considered small if its area is no more than or equal to two thousand square kilometers. In Indonesia, the number of small islands is higher than large islands.