JAKARTA, KOMPAS – A Caledonian Sky cruise ship smashed into swaths of coral reef near Manswar Island at the Raja Ampat Marine Tourism Park conservation area in West Papua. The Raja Ampat regency administration is demanding the cruise ship company pay compensation for the damage to the ecosystem at the famed tourist destination.
“We are coordinating with all relevant parties to submit our complaint to the cruise company,” Raja Ampat Regent Abdul Faris Umlati said in a telephone interview on Sunday (12/3/2017), adding that the administration will demand compensation money from the company.
Raja Ampat regency marine conservation area management unit head Adrian Kaiba said that the incident occurred during the day on March 4. Upon learning of the incident, the management unit immediately deployed a team of experts from Papua State University to assess the damage.
“The assessment is still ongoing by the team from the university,” he said. The regent has ordered the local administration to prepare a study to submit a compensation demand to the company that manages the Caledonian Sky cruise ship for the damage sustained by the Raja Ampat coral reef.
Ricardo Tapilatu, the head of the university’s research center for marine resources, who is on the assessment team, said that the team collected information on the affected area, the form of damage and affected coral types at the location in the Dampier Strait. The team will also determine the types of protected coral reef that were smashed into by the 90-meter-long Caledonian Sky cruise ship.
The incident occurred just offshore from the Kri Eco Resort near Mansuar Island. The damaged site is located in Dampier Strait in Raja Ampat, which was named as a marine conservation area through the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministerial Regulation No. 36/2014. The strait is home to various types of coral reefs that surface during low tide.
Procedural error
Ricardo said that he alleged there was a procedural error by the ship’s operator regarding the natural conditions in the Dampier Strait. “The cruise ship is huge and usually stays in areas five meters deep. It ran aground at an area only three meters deep,” he said.
The ship is reported to have been trapped by low tide as its passengers were taking a bird-watching trip to Waigeo. The ship’s operator called for a tugboat from Sorong to help refloat the ship, thereby worsening the damage to the coral reef. The damage is estimated to have occurred in a 1,600-square-meter marine area.
Photos of the destroyed coral reef covered in white sand have gone viral on social media. The coral reefs were scattered about the area by the 4,000-ton ship.
The Guardian reported that the UK-based ship operator, Nobel Caledonia, has stated that it would cooperate with local authorities to resolve the case. The ship was transporting 102 passengers and 79 crew members to the Philippines.