Towards a New Era of Management of the Derawan Islands Coastal and Small Islands Conservation Area and Surrounding Waters

The Derawan Islands Coastal and Small Islands Conservation Area and Surrounding Waters (KKP3K-KDPS), located in Berau Regency, East Kalimantan Province, is one of the areas with the highest marine biodiversity in the world, and is part of the coral triangle. KKP3K-KDPS is located in the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape with a total area of 285,548.95 hectares.

The area is also known as a migration route for important marine life and a fishery area with high economic value. Given these facts, managing it in partnership and sustainably is essential.

In order to optimize the management of these MPAs, a sustainable funding scheme is needed. To ensure management efforts can continue to run effectively.

"Sustainable funding is a challenge in conservation area management in general because most conservation activities, such as biodiversity monitoring, surveillance, and habitat restoration, are costly and must be sustained. Dependence on unstable or limited funding sources can hamper efforts to protect and restore ecosystems," explained the Head of the East Kalimantan Marine and Fisheries Agency (DKP), Irhan Hukmaidy.

Irhan added that to support the management of KKP3K-KDPS, the DKP of East Kalimantan Province then formed a Regional Technical Implementation Unit (UPTD) as a management unit tasked with carrying out management in KKP3K KDPS, which was authorized through East Kalimantan Governor Regulation Number 7 of 2024. 

In its development, the UPTD KKP3K-KDPS began implementing the Regional Public Service Agency-Financial Management Pattern (PPK-BLUD) to ensure the sustainability of funding for area management.

"The Public Service Agency scheme is one of the public service innovations introduced by the government to broadly improve services to the community. We appreciate YKAN for assisting in the process of implementing PPK-BLUD at the UPTD KKP3K-KDPS. This is important because the marine sector is one of East Kalimantan Province's main income sources. This includes the tourism and fisheries components," explained East Kalimantan Provincial Secretary Sri Wahyuni.

By implementing PPK-BLUD, the UPTD KKP3K-KDPS will be able to directly manage revenue from environmental service tariffs and other revenues for conservation area operations without going through the APBD budgeting. In addition, the UPTD KKP3K-KDPS can also recruit non-civil servant professional staff according to the needs of conservation area management. With this pattern, the UPTD KKP3K-KDPS will be managed with sound, professional, and transparent business practices to improve services to the community. 

To implement the BLUD system, a regional technical implementation unit must fulfill substantive, technical, and administrative requirements. The application of the BLUD system has been submitted to the Governor of East Kalimantan Rudy Mas'ud, and a BLUD-UPTD KKP3K-KDPS Implementation Assessment Team has been formed, led by the Regional Secretary of East Kalimantan Province Sri Wahyuni. The next stage is to conduct Technical Guidance from the Ministry of Home Affairs and BLUD feasibility assessment at UPTD KKP3K KDPS, which will be carried out in April 2025. It is expected that in May 2025, BLUD can be established by a decree of the Governor of East Kalimantan.

"Through the implementation of the Sustainable Coral Reefs Program or Koralestari funded by the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, YKAN is currently working to support the emergence of innovative funding sources for coral reef conservation and restoration in Indonesia, which are based on self-funding marine protected areas and promoting the blue economy. Given the ecological, social, and economic importance of MPAs, their management needs to be supported by a sustainable funding system. We are ready to support the process of implementing BLUD in this area. This system is one of the models for developing an effective and sustainable conservation area management institution," concluded YKAN Indonesia Ocean Program Director Muhammad Ilman.