The participants of workshop on the first day and remarks opening by representative of FAO Indonesia

The Indonesian Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (ISLME), which is home to more than almost 900,000 people in Timor Leste, has an incomparable wealth of megadiversity in the world.  However the rise of water temperature as the impact of global climate changes and over fishing threaten the loss of biodiversity and production reduction.

The Governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste with  support from  the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) and the Global Environment Fund (GEF) in a workshop on 13- 14 Aug 2019 in Bogor, West Jawa, Indonesia. have agreed upon a communication strategy to raise the people awareness on the issues and activities in the ISLME project in both countries.

ISLME is one of the 66 Large Marine Ecosystems in the world with 98% of it within territorial waters of  Indonesia and 2% within the territorial waters of Timor-Leste . It is inhabited by more than 185 million people and their livelihood depends on the coastal resources.

The Director General of Fisheries from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) Timor-Leste Mr. Acacio Guterres who attended the meeting  said in his remarks, ,” The communication strategy is important in the region, It is not only establishing  project platform to communicate between two countries and donors but also to use the communication channel to promote and share the important information to relevant stakeholders and global communities. By doing so, the problems in the region such as IUU can be solved  through collaboration and cooperation.”.

The Director General of Capture Fisheries of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) of Indonesia Zulficar Mochtar emphasized in his remarks “The region has some initiatives in place such as The Coral triangle Initiative (CTI) and The Indian Ocean Community (IOC).the success of Large Marine Ecosystem it is not only for the Ecosystem Management of Indonesia Seas Large Marine per se but contributing to the LME worldwide” Said Mochtar on his remarks. 

This project that is called “Enabling Transboundary Cooperation for Sustainable Management of the Indonesian Seas” strengthens regional cooperation and support for effective sustainable management for the ISLME region and improves management of fisheries resources and food security by gender mainstreaming. "Women's group involvement is prioritized in this project, especially for the key areas with strong gender implications such as alternative livelihoods, local trade and post-harvest activities especially to those related to supply chains," FAO-R Assistance on Programme Ageng Herianto expressed his views regarding gender mainstreaming in his remarks.