INDONESIA boasts its coastline is generally clean, but these claims are based on data that is at least eight years old. Experts say the problems resulting from urban waste and oil pollution in the Strait of Malacca may be quite serious now. One reason why marine data is given such low priority in Indonesia may be because fisheries form a minor part of the country's gross domestic product.

However, based on data from the mid-1980s, Rokhmin Dahuri of Bogor Agricultural University says marine waters except near Teluk Bayur Harbour in west Sumatra, are generally unpolluted, but it is a different story along the eastern shores of North Sumatra and Aceh, next to the Strait of Malacca.

Here, says Dahuri, the concentration of biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), heavy metals and coliform bacteria are in excess of national environmental standards. Most of the problems in this region arise from an increase in population and industry and from waste-dumping by other countries in the region, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.