Third Coral Triangle Regional Business Forum: A Marriage of Profit and Sustainability

A number of business and industry leaders committed to implementing programs that will contribute to building a Blue Economy for the Coral Triangle region during the 3rd Coral Triangle Regional Business Forum. Companies from the seafood, tourism, shipping, manufacturing, and telecommunications sectors were among the several key business players in the region that were recognized for their environmentally-responsible business practices.

The Blue Economy concept— concept on utilizing resources more efficient, applying innovation on using waste as raw material and resource of energy that can make self-sufficiency that can apply to marine and fisheries activities—took center stage during the forum, where distinguished speakers including Prof Emil Salim, Chairs of Indonesian Presidential Advisory Team, Shanti Poesposoetjipto, President Commissioner of PT Samudera Indonesia, Aditya Utama Surono, Director of Sustainability of Anova Asia, Florendo Maranan, Executive Director of the Bank of the Philippine Islands Foundation, and Handry Satriago, CEO of General Electric Indonesia gave notable examples of business initiatives that allowed for profit growth, while ensuring the welfare of the natural resources and local communities.

Keynote speaker Prof. Dr. Gunter Pauli, initiator and author of The Blue Economy, first introduced the Blue Economy concept in 2004, which encourages people to manage resources efficiently through innovations and technologies that create zero waste products.  One of the innovative commitments recognized at the forum was the public-private partnership between the Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources and Solomon Islands Telecom for their Mobile Inshore Fisheries Data Collection Platform. This will be the first-ever consolidated way of gathering inshore fisheries data, which will wirelessly link mobile devices used by inshore fishers and fish vendors to a central server housed and managed in the Ministry.

The 3rd Coral Triangle Regional Business Forum was hosted this year by the Indonesian Government and organized by the National Coordinating Committee (NCC) CTI CFF of Indonesia, CTI CFF Interim Regional Secretariat, the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), the Coral Triangle Center and the Indonesian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), with the support of USAID.

The forum has also recognized several notable Public-Private Partnerships between large-scale companies, NGOs, local communities, and governmental agencies that aim to improve marine resource use and management, be it adopting more rigorous operating standards, employing sustainable sourcing policies, or financing grassroots activities that benefit both the people and environment.

Photo Caption: Distinguished speakers at the 3rd RBF (L-R) Prof. Dr. Gunter Pauli,Mr. Florendo Maranan, Ms. Suzy Hutomo,Vice Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia, H.E. Mr. Dr. Sapta Nirwandar, Capt. Rod Short, Ms. Rili Djohani and Dr. Efransjah.