Underwater Wakatobi lab set to be global leader

The Jakarta Post - 

An underwater laboratory in Southeast Sulawesi is set to a global center for the study of coral reefs and bioenergy, an official says.

“The utilization of the Wakatobi undersea laboratory as a global center for coral reefs and bioenergy study will begin simultaneously with the opening of the International Fishery School, established by the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry,” Wakatobi Regent Hugua said on Tuesday as quoted by Antara news agency.

More than a thousand researchers would begin work in Wakatobi after the laboratory and school opened in August, Hugua said.

“Every foreign researcher will be assisted by a researcher from [the Indonesian Institute of Sciences] or a local university in Indonesia,” he said.

Hugua said that the school would seek to improve itself by collaborating with universities outside Indonesia.

“We have been communicating with the University of Essex, Cambridge and Oxford in England; Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and Harvard University in the US to work together in improving the fisheriy school in Wakatobi,” Hugua said.

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