Tuesday, 13 October, 2009

By Richard Habgood

Late on 26 December 2004, the world witnessed images of a tsunami rushing through coastal areas throughout South East Asia. While most news stories focused on Thailand, one of the worst affected areas was Aceh, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. In Aceh, the aquaculture sub-sector is socially, economically and environmentally important and plays a significant part in the livelihoods of inhabitants of many its coastal villages.

Aceh’s aquaculture industry relies on brackishwater ponds (locally known as tambak) located at the ocean edge. Before the tsunami, these ponds covered around 73 000 ha, producing mainly milkfish for domestic consumption, and high value shrimp, destined for export markets. The tsunami destroyed or badly damaged around half of the tambaks, and with it the income opportunities for thousands of households living along the northeast coast of Sumatra.

I was recently in Banda Aceh for a second five week assignment working as a Volunteer on a project that is rehabilitating the aquaculture industry. This project is based at the government run, Brackish Water Aquaculture Development Centre (BBAP) Ujung Batee. BBAP Ujung Batee is one of four regional brackishwater aquaculture Technical Implementation Units (TIUs) under the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) Directorate-General of Aquaculture (DGA). BBAP Ujung Batee has the mandated responsibility to provide technical leadership and the necessary support services to assist and promote the development of coastal aquaculture throughout Sumatra, particularly in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalem (NAD) Province.

BBAP Ujung Batee provides hatchery, laboratory and advisory services for the aquaculture industry. It was also severely affected by the tsunami: eight of the 65 staff died during the tsunami, with many more loosing friends and family. Many of the facilities, including the laboratory, hatcheries and staff housing were also destroyed. In fact, a large rock washed by the force of the tsunami still remains in the Centre’s meeting room.

Since September 2006, rehabilitation of BBAP Ujung Batee has been supported through the Aceh Aquaculture Rehabilitation Project (AARP), under the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development (AIPRD). AARP has funded the reconstruction of buildings and facilities destroyed in the tsunami, and provided technical training and capacity-building in areas relevant to BBAP Ujung Batee’s role.

Prior to the tsunami, BBAP Ujung Batee was relatively isolated because of the ongoing civil conflict in Aceh. Consequently, they had difficulty recruiting new staff with extensive project management skills. Since the tsunami, an additional 21 staff have been appointed but all are recent graduates with no or little project management experience.

Through ACIAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research), the Australian Government is also funding an ongoing program to rebuild the science capacity of the Centre generally and staff specifically. This has included sending staff to Australia for specialist laboratory training and establishing farm demonstration ponds. The Australian project leader, Dr. Michael Rimmer, has also identified the need to build the operational planning, project management and staff management capacity at the Centre, and this was my assignment.

Working with managers and staff proved to be very rewarding. All were highly receptive and eager to put such skills into practice. I also hope that by providing managers with guidance documents on business planning, project design and management, as well as staff performance planning, these resources will consolidate ongoing improvements. Finally, evaluation of my input to date revealed that staff capacity has significantly increased in areas of project design and management.

With the support of the Director and his Senior Manager Team, I feel I have made some good progress. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for ongoing input from ABV’s Volunteer Experts to contribute to both building the capacity of the Centre, and assisting the people of Aceh continue to rebuild their lives.

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