Sustainability Status and Management Strategies of Mangrove Ecosystems (Case Study: Mangrove and Crab Conservation Area in Tarakan City, Indonesia)

    Mangrove and Crab Conservation Area (KKMK) is a mangrove forest area that has experienced degradation caused by land conversion into settlements. Efforts to overcome the damage to the mangrove ecosystem are by identifying the sustainability status to produce appropriate and sustainable management strategies. This study aimed to evaluate the status of the KKMK mangrove ecosystem and management sustainability strategy based on Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis, which includes five dimensions, including ecology, conservation, economy, social, and institution. The research data collection consisted of collecting information for each attribute in the five dimensions using primary and secondary data. The results of the mangrove ecosystem sustainability in KKMK show that only the conservation dimension has a very sustainable status (84.544%), and the ecological has a moderately sustainable status (67.478%). In contrast, the other three dimensions with a less sustainable status are the economic, with a value of 42.516%; the social, with a value of 31.872%; and the institutional, with a value of 25.964%. The management strategy for mangrove ecosystems in KKMK is based on the sustainability status of the ecological, which is to rehabilitate various types. The strategy for the conservation is to integrate conservation area spatial planning into the Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW) and monitoring. The strategy for the economic is to increase the budget and to support the Tarakan City Government as well as various parties, including the private sector and NGO’s. The social strategy is to increase public awareness through training, counselling, coordination and community involvement in mangrove ecosystem management. The strategy for the institutional is to create a master plan or strategic plan that covers all aspects of KKMK development by conducting comprehensive coordination between government agencies and local communities.