Jakarta, July 16, 2011 (ANTARA) - Wakatobi is expected to have a festive
atmosphere as 1,000 bikers will tour the district and thousands of local
people will offer traditional dances and food during a folk festival to
mark the launch of Sail Wakatobi Balitong 2011 on Saturday (July 16).
"The folk festival that we have prepared for the Sail Wakatobi
launch tomorrow evening, will include the traditional `kande-kandea` and
`Kabuenga`," Tawakal, the head of the Wakatobi Tourism, Art and
Cultural Office, said in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, on Friday (July
15).
"Kande-kadea" is the Wakatobi people`s tradition to welcome and
offer honored guests with various traditional Wakatobi food.
Several ministers such as Coordinating Minister for People`s
Welfare Agung Leksono, Tourism and Culture Minister Jero Wacik,
Southeast Sulawesi Governor Nur Alam, and Marine Affairs and Fisheries
Minister Fadel Muhammad will be present at the reception.
Beautiful girls and women from eight sub districts and 100 villages
in Wakatobi District will offer various local food dishes to the
honored guests who can choose the food according to their taste.
"In short, the kande-kandea to be organized to mark the launch of
Sail Wakatobi this time will be the merriest ever held by the Wakatobi
people in the history of "kande-kandea"," Tawakal said.
The folk festival will also include "Bangka Mbule-mbule" to be
participated in by around 10,000 traditional fishing boats, and
"Kabuenga" traditional ritual which is organized to help young people
find their future husbands or wives.
A tour by 1,000 bikers from Indonesia and abroad is also organized to mark the launch of Sail Wakatobi Belitong.
The 1,000 bikers including Minister Fadel Mohammad, Minister Jero
Wacik, Governor Nur Alam and Wakatobi District Head Hugua, will be led
by Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Agung Laksono," Tawakal
said.
Minister Fadel Muhammad had earlier said at least 40 countries will
take part in Sail Wakatobi-Belitong 2011 in the second week of July.
"So far, 40 states have confirmed their participation but we hope
the number will eventually rise to 70," Fadel said recently when seeing
off task force members of the Surya Bhaskara Operation, a civic mission
organized as part of the Sail Wakatobi-Belitong activities.
The marine affairs and fishery ministry`s director general of
marine and fishery sources supervision concurrently the Sail
Wakatobi-Belitong organizing committee secretary, Syahrin Abdurrahman,
said the Sail 2011 event has six main activities.
The activities are a yacht rally, a civic mission of Bhakti Surya
Bhaskara Jaya, national and international seminars on marine and fishery
sources management, archipelagic youth marine cross, marine and fishery
product exhibitions.
The Sail Wakatobi-Belitong 2011 will be organized for six weeks,
since the second week of July until the fourth week of August in
Wakatobi and Belitong District, Bangka Belitung Province, Sumatra.
A number of big ships will participate in the Sail, and one of them
will bring along a group of doctors who will give free medical services
to Wakatobi residents.
Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Agung Laksono had
earlier said that the budget allocated for Sail Wakatobi Belitong was
estimated to reach Rp60 billion.
The funds would also be used to improve some infrastructures in Wakatobi and Belitong.
Minister Agung said Sail Wakatobi Belitong was important to promote
marine tourism, conduct a civic mission, develop the youth in the
framework of the national character building, and to speed up the
development in the regions.
Fadel, who has stayed on Wangi-wangi Island, Wakatobi District,
since few days ago, has called for acceleration of infrastructure
development in the district to support the implementation of Sail
Wakatobi Belitong 2011.
"I want the development be accelerated," Minister Fadel said in Wangi-wangi on Friday.
The construction works of main roads, power installation and a
plane runway must be completed soon, he stated. "It`s very important.
We want the development in Wakatobi to progress," he said.
Having underwater panoramic beauty and breath-taking diving sites,
Wakatobi is a biodiversity hotspot especially known for various species
of coral reefs.
The district is situated geographically at the world`s coral reef
triangle center and has around 942 fish species and 750 coral reef
species.
Thanks to its rich marine sources, it has become a location of
researches conducted by European and American universities over the
past tens of years.
To optimally develop the marine sources, the marine affairs and
fisheries ministry plans to set up a world-class School for Marine
Conservation (SMC) in Wakatobi.
"We want to build an international standard school in Wakatobi,"
Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad said in Wangi-wanig
on Saturday.
The planned school is expected to become a benchmark of similar
marine schools in Indonesia, and will have three departments, namely
Conservation Management, Biodiversity, and Ocean Engineering.
SMC would be able to accommodate 400 students, around 2,000
training course participants, and have 50 lecturers, the minister said.
Since 1996, Wakatobi has had a conservation area or a national
park covering a total area of 1.39 million hectares. The national park
has 25 clusters of coral reef, 600-km long coastal line, 112 species of
coral reef from 13 families, and 93 species of fish.
Indonesia is one of the world`s largest maritime countries with
about 5.8 million square kilometers of marine territory. It is the
biggest archipelagic country in the world, with around 70% its territory
is waters and it has 17,480 islands.
The government plans to increase the nation`s marine conservation
area to 20 million hectares by 2020, from the present 13.5 million
hectares. ***4***
(F001/A/HAJM/14:10/f001)
(T.F001/A/F001/F001) 16-07-2011 14:38:36
Daerah : Jakarta (JKT)
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