'Moderate' 5.4 earthquake shakes Papua province

Another 'moderate' earthquake, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, struck Papua province at 11:24 a.m. (0224 GMT), an official at the Indonesian National Metereology and Geophysics Agency confirmed to Reuters. It was centred 147 km northwest of the provincial capital, Jayapura, at a depth of 78 km, the official said.

Squatters endanger Jayapura water catchments

The future of nature conservation water catchment areas serving the Papua provincial capital city of Jayapura and the nearby town of Sentani is under threat from human settlement and resultant land clearance. According to Jayapura Regent Habel Melkias Suwae, 4,330 people have illegally settled in the Cycloop conservation areas, because government bans on people living in the conservation areas were not being heeded. "These people have illegally felled trees and developed farming ... They claim the land belongs to them so that they feel they can do as they like. But when their activities cause flooding, it is the local administration which is to blame," he said.

Suwae explained that out of the 22,500 hectares earmarked for nature conservation in the area, 9,374 hectares had been classified as 'critical land'. Illegal logging in the conservation areas had already caused landslides in three locations and caused flooding in parts of Sentani, Habel said as reported by The Jakarta Post.

Raja Ampat regent forms Marine Protected Area

The waters off the northwest tip of Papua are among the world's richest in marine biodiversity but are affected by human activity. The Nature Conservancy environmental organization is among parties involved in efforts toward creating sustainability in the area. The following report is by The Jakarta Post's Ati Nurbaiti who was invited to communal ceremonies on 15 February held to affirm the local commitment to conservation in the Raja Ampat regency.

This regency of over 600 islands, both large and small, is a three-hour speedboat journey or whole-day ferry trip away from the port town of Sorong, in Papua Barat province. Its waters are frequented by whales, manta rays and dolphins, and locals attribute the return of fish near their homes to the recent conservation efforts.

The conservation project aims to preserve the biodiversity of this regency, comprised of four million hectares of land and sea with a human populace of just 38,000, according to latest estimates. Less than 40 of these islands are inhabited. The focus of the conservation efforts is predominantly on marine life, with evidence of over-exploitation in local and foreign fishing activities.

Last December Regent Marcus Wanma announced part of , the 110,000 hectares of sea around the Kofiau islands stretching to the border with North Maluku, as a protected marine area. In mid-February local communities affirmed their commitment to the area's conservation through religious and traditional rituals.

"What is required here," says Becky Rahawarin, head of the local fisheries agency, "is a management model which differs from that of protected areas under national parks." The regency must seek its own model. Until December there were a number of protected areas scattered throughout the islands, but lack of funds and other factors have rendered protection efforts ineffective, he said.

Local authorities have opted to adopt the environmental program, naming it the Regional Marine Protected Area, though no one has measured which part of the ocean comes under the jurisdiction of the central government and which parts should be fall under the umbrella of the local administration.

Illegal logging in Papua may be decreasing

Indonesia’s Minister of Environment said illegal logging in Papua province is decreasing but more work needs to be done to reduce the illegal timber trade. Rachmat Witoelar told Radio New Zealand International that the international demand for hardwood, particularly kwila, is fuelling environmentally damaging, illegal logging in Papua.

Kwila trees take up to 100 years to grow, are difficult to regenerate and are becoming commercially extinct and Witoelar said it’s hard to keep Papua’s native forests in tact while corrupt loggers still have a market demanding its timber.

“Elements who are corrupt, they deal in this and because there are buyers from outside. So we have to stem both the outflow and the purchase, the market. If we reduce the market then there won’t be any motives for the illegal loggers the perpetrators, to repeat themselves,” he said.