On October 31st 2020, the University of Pattimura in Ambon (Maluku) held its Second Maluku International Conference on Marine Science and Technology (MICMST2). The theme of this second conference was "Adapting to a changing world: Challenges and solutions for small islands".
The main goals of the conference were threefold:
- explore existing and emerging challenges around environmental and resource sustainability
- identify collaborative multidisciplinary opportunities to explore emerging innovation and business opportunities
- develop strategies to address Indonesia’s National Research Priorities
Serge Andréfouët (UMR Entropie) was a member of the scientific committee and also intervened as an invited speaker. His talk was entitled "A census of Indonesia islands" and is summarized as follows:
In the wake of the INDESO project (2014-2018), a remote-sensing based census of Indonesia islands was recently conducted to provide a much-needed, documented, consistent view of Indonesian Islands, with numbers, density and size-distribution. Using Landsat satellite images, 13550 islands are inventoried, among which 263 islands are larger than 50 km2, and 11830 are smaller than 1 km2. Highest densities of islands (>600 per square degree) were found around Misool, Aru, Raja Ampat and Riau archipelagoes. This work provides a consistent database that should be useful for numerous regional spatial planning projects in the frame of the 'One map policy' promoted by the Indonesian authorities.
More about the conference: https://micmst2.mmsce.org
