CORAL TRIANGLE INITIATIVE
GALA DINNER
WELCOMING REMARKS
BY
H.E. DR. SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA
MANADO, 14 MAY 2009
Bimillahirrahmanirrahim,
Assalaamu'alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakaatuh,
Peace be upon us,
Your Excellency President Arroyo,
Your Excellency President Ramos-Horta,
Your Excellency Prime Minister Najib,
Your Excellency Prime Minister Somare,
Your Excellency Prime Minister Sikua,
Coral Triangle Initiative Partners,
Distinguished Delegates,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to welcome all of you to this Gala Dinner. I thank you for coming here to participate at the World Ocean Conference and to grace the launching of the Coral Triangle Initiative.
We all can take a sigh of relief that today we have been able to successfully convene a successful World Ocean Conference that was participated by around 5000 participants. I am delighted that that conference produced the Manado Ocean Declaration. This sends a signal, loud and clear, from the ocean community to the world of the need to protect our oceans and the coastlines. This is an important part of the solution in the efforts to find a global climate change consensus. Please join me in giving a big hand to all the delegates who produced that historic declaration.
I am grateful to the leaders of the other Coral Triangle countries for taking time off their busy schedules to join us in this vitally important Initiatives.
The least we can do out of gratitude is to make this evening a very pleasant one for all of you. You will, therefore, be treated to a cultural show; a show that will remind you of our cultural kinship with other Coral Triangle countries.
We will also show a documentary produced by the CTI Secretariat: "The Coral Triangle Initiative: A Call to Action". This film tells a heart-tugging story of the amazing marine resources that we are blessed with, and the distress and destruction they are suffering from human hands and from climate change.
It is also our story; it tells of what we have done to save these pecious resources from utter destruction, and of what we can and will do to preserve them as a legacy for future generations of humankind.
This is the story of a vision that we the six Coral Triangle Governments began to form a year and a half ago in Bali. It was in Bali also that we committed ourselves to working together to sustainably manage these life-nurturing marine and coastal resources.
Since then, in a series of meetings, our six Governments and our partners have reached a clear and common understanding of the condition of the Coral Triangle and what we should do about it.
We have come to recognize that the Coral Triangle is the very centre of marine life abundance and marine life diversity on this planet. And that our peoples depend every day on these priceless resources for their livelihood and food security - for their very lives. Indeed, we cannot win the war against poverty and our peoples cannot prosper, unless we manage wisely our marine and coastal resources.
We have also come to realize that these precious resources are being wasted by overfishing, destructive fishing practices, pollution and climate change. That is why we are here.
Our six countries have developed a comprehensive Regional Plan of Action to address, and hopefully reverse, this problem.
Tomorrow, at our Summit, we will adopt that Plan of Action and sign a Leaders' Declaration, by virtue of which we launch the Coral Triangle Initiative and commit ourselves to its vigorous implementation.
Tonight, we are gathered here as a community of peoples with the finest anticipations of the unprecedented enterprise we are going to carry out.
In the spirit of community, let us break bread together and enjoy the evening and one another's company.
I thank you.
Biro Naskah dan Penerjemahan,
Deputi Mensesneg Bidang Dukungan Kebijakan,
Sekretariat Negara RI