By: Tardi Sarwan (Responsible Marine Business Coordinator for Lesser Sunda)

Pledo Village, Witihama Sub-district, East Flores Regency, is known for its beautiful white sand island. The island is one of a cluster of six islands in Mekko Hamlet, Pledo Village, which has three other hamlets located on Adonara Island. In the beginning, Mekko Hamlet was known for its fishermen who liked to catch sharks before the ban on shark fishing at the national level.

However, now Mekko Hamlet fishermen no longer catch sharks by switching to catching other types of fish, such as demersal fish or pelagic fish. Based on WWF-Indonesia data collection in 2014, sharks in Mekko Hamlet waters are dominated by the type of blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) or Blackfin Reef Shark and Whitefin Shark or whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus).

The results of WWF-Indonesia's research in Pledo Village in 2014 showed that the waters of Mekko Hamlet are suspected to be an important habitat for shark pups that need to be managed. WWF-Indonesia has also collected data on shark encounters and bycatch in Mekko Hamlet. Based on this, WWF-Indonesia began to provide assistance to a community group, the Bangkit Muda Mudi Mekko Group or BM3.

BM3 is a group that has a concentration in the field of tourism. WWF-Indonesia seeks to assist BM3 in institutional development, ecotourism capacity building, village tourism planning, marketing and tourism product development. Currently, the BM3 group is starting in the transitional stage and institutional development towards ecotourism capacity building.

"The group was formed initially just to channel the hobby of playing soccer, hence the name Bangkit Muda Mudi Mekko. The word rise is taken because basically we Bajo people are very difficult to group, so it is hoped that the word rise can arouse the spirit of the group. But over time many tourists come to Mekko for tourism, why don't we start focusing on developing Mekko in the direction of responsible tourism," said the Group Leader, Mr. Bakri.

On October 21-24, WWF-Indonesia tried to facilitate the BM3 group to start identifying potential tourist attraction objects and their supporting facilities and infrastructure. The activities that have taken place in a participatory manner do not forget to involve the fishermen, the village community, the group and also the women in Mekko Hamlet. From the results of the facilitation activities, several maps and document studies will be compiled to continue the process in ecotourism capacity building and village level planning.

Help Preserve Marine Animals in Mekko Waters, Come on!
Besides being able to find sharks in Mekko Hamlet, we can also find green and hawksbill turtles in its waters. Unfortunately, the turtles are also sometimes seen in the trawls of fishermen who are accidentally caught. This shows that the waters of Mekko Hamlet have an abundance of fishery resources. Not a few of the tourists who pass by or spend the night using cruise ships, yacths, and Live on Board (LOB) praise its beauty. Usually the ships that come to spend the night for two days do marine tourism activities in the waters of Mekko Hamlet, such as canoeing, jet skiing, diving, snorkeling, swimming and sunbathing on Pasir Putih Island.

Currently, tourists have come by themselves to Mekko Hamlet. In addition to foreign tourists, local tourists also do not want to lose enjoying the beauty of Pasir Putih Island. Most of them come by land transported by fishermen and local residents to Pasir Putih Island for a fee of 15,000 / person. With the increasing number of tourists attending, we hope that the government can help improve facilities and infrastructure as well as increase the capacity of groups related to tourism activities.

This is because responsible tourism activities need to be developed by the Mekko Hamlet community to preserve its natural resources, so that fishermen who have made the transition in the use of environmentally friendly fishing gear can increasingly feel the benefits. Now the marine area of Mekko Hamlet has also been included in the tourism utilization area in the Regional Marine Conservation Area plan which is being submitted to the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to be determined and included in the East Flores Regency Tourism Strategic Area Plan.