Environmental Implication of Dumping Waste on Marine Ecosystem

Abstract

Based on law and government regulation of Republic of Indonesia dumping waste is prohibited. Law No. 32/2009 on the Protection and Management of Environment stated that any person prohibited from dumping deliberate wastes and/or materials to the environment without permission. However some activities on mining and exploration and production of petroleum as well as dredging of port pond activities at Indonesian marine ecosystem still conducted with permission from the Ministry of Environment. There are some potential impact of dumping wastes on marine ecosystem such as physical disturbance to sea bed, physical and chemical disturbance to water column, organism-level effects for example acute/or chronic toxicity, effects on growth and reproduction, ecological/ecosytem level responses, and human resources use for example aesthetic effects.This paper will explain the activities of mining and exploration and production of petroleum at the Indonesian sea and potential effects on marine ecosystem such as sensitive area (coral reef, sea grass bed, mangrove ecosystem), migration of mammal sea, the area of capture fisheries, and transportation lane in the sea. The specific activities of mining is tailing wastes from gold mining, while exploration and production petroleum activites is dumping of drilling cutting, drilling fluid and drilling mud on the sea.