History PEI



WELCOME TO

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDONESIA OFFICIAL WEBSITE

 

Entomological Society of Indonesia (ESI) has 1094 members who resides across Indonesia, from Sumatra to Papua. The Society was created on 1 October 1970 by 23 attendees of Plant Protection Meeting that was held in Salatiga, Central Java. Although the Society was officially created in 1970, under Dutch rulers, a Society called Nederlandsch-Indische Entomologische Vereninging (NIEV) was created in 1934. This organization mainly consisted of Dutch entomologist who focused their research on tropical entomology. They are the founding fathers of the entomological community in Indonesia.

ESI has 27 branches across Indonesia. The activities of the societies are mainly conducting research (in collaboration with different institution), seminars, symposiums and workshops. There are also branches that are actively conducting efficacy testing for pesticide permits. The Society just recently held its 8th Congress in Bogor, on 24-25 January 2012, where about 500 people attended the meeting, around 134 presented their work in the Seminar that was co jointly conducted with the Congress. There was also students’ competition, Insect photography competition, Linnaean Game, and writing competition. The result can be accessed from our official website. The Congress has also elected a new President for the 2012-2015 working period. Prof. Dr. Andi Trisyono from Gajah Mada University was elected to chair the Society for the period of 2012-2015.

There are many challenges faced by ESI. Entomological issues in health, agriculture are only among the few that needs the full attention of its members. Providing strategic direction for scientific development and issues related to pest control and IPM are among the tasks that the Society has to consider. The globalization of Trade is another challenge that the Society has to prepare in order to prevent dumping of products. ESI is open to any form of collaboration that can be forged across Institutions as well as across countries. Although our Website is still in Indonesian, we plan to have dual language in the coming months.

Entomological Society of Indonesia Head Office, Bogor, Indonesia.

A Foreword

In the last couple of months, several “intriguing” phenomena related to insects have created quite a frenzy in several big cities in Indonesia. In the month of April and May, 2011 an explosion of the caterpillar Actornis submarginata and Lymantria beatrix happened in Probolinggo, East Java . Some people attribute this to climate change. Even though there is no real evidence of its relation to climate change, the news hotly debated the explosion to some changes that has been happening in the last decade.

Recently in early March 2012, another intriguing phenomena related to insect occurred in Indonesia. This time it was the attack of the rove beetles, Paederus sp to some urban areas in East Java. Surabaya, one of the major city in East java was attacked by numerous rove beetles and caused some health problems to almost fifty Surabaya residence. People were frantic and relate this to biblical phenomena such as locust. Whatever the case may be, both these phenomena have shown that urban entomology and medical entomology have become more important now, and this trend will continue in the coming years. This is actually easy to predict, since the increase in population size has bring about changes in the cities, i.e. more cities are getting bigger and hence the importance of urban and medical entomology has followed suit.

What is the implication of these phenomena to Entomology in Indonesia? It is clear that as human population increase, the interaction between human-insects shall also increase in frequency. One proof of this is the incidence of dengue that has been on the rise in the last decade. More and more cases are found in many cities throughout the country. The consequence is that Entomology in Indonesia, as a science , has to grow. If before, Entomology has been very much developed toward agriculture, now we need to equip ourselves with the science and knowledge of urban entomology and medical entomology. We need more people trained in this branch of science.

The Entomological Society of Indonesia needs to help its members to increase their capacity in understanding urban entomology and medical entomology. This is one challenge that the Society face: how to increase the knowledge, the science and the skills of its members that are spread throughout the whole archipelago. We hope we can develop partnership across institutions and across countries to tackle the looming challenges that we are facing.

Damayanti Buchori