Improving Members’ Capacity Building in the Professional Field, Himiteka IPB University Holds Hydrobiology Professional Training
The Marine Science and Technology Student Association (Himiteka), Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science (FPIK) IPB University held a marine hydrobiology (HBO) professional training activity on Pramuka Island, Kepulauan Seribu. This training is a series of diving certification and coral transplantation activities aimed at adding insight, competence and ability in scientific diving and being able to understand coral reef transplantation.
The training was attended by 17 students with details of 14 people registering for Open Water Diver Certification and the remaining three people for Specialty Diver Course Certification in the field of Rescue. Diving certification activities in collaboration with Marine Science and Technology Diving School (MSTDS) are divided into two, namely pre-activity and certification. The pre-certification session was filled with lectures on basic diving science and Pool Skills Training (LKK) to prepare participants for diving practices.
As diving instructors, Dr. Beginer Subhan and Dondy Arafat, SPi MSi were accompanied by eight mentors during the activity.
"Diving is an industry. The industry has stages starting from the bottom to the top. This concept is similar to the concept of diving where to dive we have to start from the basics such as open water, specialty to dive master and then instructor," said Dr Beginer.
Dondy Arafat, SPi, MSi also mandated the trainees to continue to learn and explore knowledge to improve their professionalism in the marine field.
"Those of you who are marine scholars not only learn about remote sensing, acoustics but we also need to explore the ecology and systems contained in the sea. We can know all of that through scientific diving," Dondy said during the opening of the certification activity on Pramuka Island, recently.
In the certification activity, participants are required to do four dives to be able to obtain a Scuba School International (SSI) diving license. In addition, participants are also given the opportunity to carry out fun diving or exploring so that they can also see the charm of underwater beauty.
Collaborating with Smiling Coral Indonesia, the training ended with a coral transplantation activity on Pramuka Island which aims to build awareness of students and the community to keep protecting the sea, especially coral reef areas.
Hermansyah, S.Si. as the Founder of Smiling Coral Indonesia revealed that around 60 percent of coral reefs in the Thousand Islands have been damaged or experienced coral bleaching. Whereas what sustains the Thousand Islands are coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves. He emphasized that if coral reefs do not exist, then 80 percent of Thousand Islands residents who have a fisherman's livelihood, will no longer get fish.
"We must want to be encouraged to become a community group that strives to keep coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves alive to build an ecosystem that can produce good resources for humans," he said.
The coral transplants carried out in this training were five rocklife media, each containing ten baby corals. The baby corals provided are corals that grow easily and quickly. In the future, the transplanted corals will be monitored once every three months to ensure that all or some of the transplanted corals grow well. (RAT/Rz) (IAAS/RUM)
