Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has advised President-elect Prabowo Subianto to purchase research vessels with sophisticated tools, especially to map deep-sea wealth and potential disasters.
“I will encourage Mr. Prabowo to make this a priority,” Luhut said during a press conference related to the Indonesia-OceanX joint expedition, in Nusa Dua, Badung Regency, Bali, Wednesday.
According to him, the Indonesian government has the budget to buy exploration vessels for research with sophisticated tools.
There is also one of the advanced ships for research, the OceanXplorer, owned by the OceanX marine exploration nonprofit organization with an estimated price of IDR 3.5 trillion.
He revealed that to have a research vessel, it does not have to be luxurious, but mainly equipped with sophisticated equipment.
“Indonesia has to be more aggressive, we can’t wait, when a country as big as us doesn’t have a ship for research,” he said.
To get around this, he said, cooperation with other agencies both at home and abroad needs to be carried out to map natural resources to the deep sea and mapping potential disasters centered on the seabed.
The nonprofit’s ship has advanced equipment, including a remote operated vehicle (ROV) or a tool capable of diving at depths of up to 6,000 meters, along with two researchers/operators on board, and a laboratory.
“We don’t have to make the ship luxurious, but it has the most up-to-date technology and there Indonesian young people can learn, it’s like a floating university,” he also said.
Luhut explained that more than 70 percent of Indonesia’s territory is sea with a coastline of more than 108 thousand kilometers and 17,504 islands.
Indonesia’s marine wealth also holds biodiversity, fisheries, blue carbon, new renewable energy and Indonesia’s sea area is one of the world’s trade routes.
Even so, he said again, only about 19 percent of Indonesian waters have been mapped and less explored, especially the deep sea.
Indonesia has deep water points including the Java Trench with an estimated depth of 7,180 meters, the Banda Sea reaching 7,440 meters to the Sulawesi Sea reaching 6,200 meters.
