Azis began his professional journey with a background in marine science. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and Technology from Hasanuddin University in 1995, with a thesis examining the mortality rate of giant clam juveniles in Taka Bonerate National Park through a WWF-funded research project.
MARITIMEPOSTS.COM – For more than two decades, Kamaruddin Azis has worked across a space where journalism, marine science, community development, and strategic communication increasingly meet.
His professional journey has taken him from coastal communities and marine conservation projects to international development programs, corporate sustainability initiatives, and independent digital media.
Today, he is the founder and chief editor of Pelakita.ID and MaritimePosts.com, two platforms through which he explores Indonesia’s maritime affairs, environmental challenges, sustainability, and social transformation.
Azis began his professional journey with a background in marine science. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and Technology from Hasanuddin University in 1995, with a thesis examining the mortality rate of giant clam juveniles in Taka Bonerate National Park through a WWF-funded research project.
His early field experience included work with WWF Indonesia and later the COREMAP World Bank program, where he became involved in coastal conservation, community facilitation, and institutional development.
These experiences established a foundation that would continue to shape his work: an interest in understanding environmental issues not simply as ecological questions, but also through the people, institutions, and livelihoods connected to them.
Over the years, his work expanded into development communication and strategic engagement. Azis has collaborated with major international development organizations and institutions, including the Food and Agriculture Organization, JICA, USAID, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, WWF, and GIZ.
His assignments have covered sustainable fisheries, coastal development, renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, community empowerment, knowledge management, and climate-related initiatives. He has worked with governments, corporations, civil society organizations, development agencies, and local communities, often occupying a role that requires translating technical programs and development objectives into narratives that people can understand and engage with.
Since 2012, Azis has also served as Executive Secretary of The Community Initiative for Transformation (COMMIT Foundation), where he has worked on organizational development, institutional partnerships, community empowerment, environmental sustainability, and multi-stakeholder programs.
His professional portfolio has included communication and advisory roles supporting Sustainable Development Goals and community development, as well as work on fisheries and marine ecosystem management through the FAO-ISLME project. More recently, his work has extended to renewable energy access in rural and island communities, sustainable urban infrastructure, climate financing, and seaweed cultivation initiatives associated with blue carbon, climate mitigation, and sustainable livelihoods.
For Azis, communication is not merely about disseminating information. It is also a way of connecting knowledge with lived experience. His work in journalism reflects that perspective.
Since the early 2000s, he has contributed to local and national media and developed a body of writing around environmental, social, and development issues.
In 2020, he established Pelakita.ID, an independent digital media platform focused on sustainability, coastal development, climate change, public policy, and social transformation. As its founder and chief editor, he has developed editorial content ranging from feature stories and opinion pieces to policy reporting and multimedia storytelling.
In 2026, Azis expanded his media work beyond Indonesia’s domestic information space with the launch of MaritimePosts.com, an English-language platform covering marine policy, fisheries, the blue economy, climate change, and regional development across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
The initiative reflects his longstanding interest in bringing maritime issues into broader conversations and making developments in Indonesia’s coastal and marine sectors more accessible to international audiences. It also builds on his experience working between local communities, national institutions, international organizations, and development partners.
His academic path has continued alongside this professional work. After completing a Master’s degree in Strategic Management at Hasanuddin University in 2011, with research on the strategic effectiveness of NGO forums in strengthening civil society, Azis returned to doctoral study in Development Studies at the same university in 2025.
The academic focus complements a career that has consistently examined the relationships between institutions, communities, knowledge, communication, and development.
Azis has also remained connected to Indonesia’s marine science community. He previously served as Chair of the Hasanuddin University Marine Science Alumni Association and is a member of the Indonesian Marine Science Alumni Association (ISKINDO).
His professional development has included training in climate reporting, AI and journalism, knowledge tools for media professionals, rural development facilitation, and coastal restoration.
What distinguishes Azis’s professional trajectory is less a single occupational identity than the intersection of several fields.
He is a marine science graduate who moved into development work, a development practitioner who became a journalist, and a media founder whose reporting remains informed by years of field engagement. His work continues to bring together policy, environmental knowledge, community experience, and public storytelling.
Through Pelakita.ID and MaritimePosts.com, Azis is building a distinctive editorial space for Indonesia’s maritime story—one that looks beyond the sea as geography or resource and considers the people, institutions, economies, and ecological systems that shape its future.
His continuing work reflects a simple but expansive premise: understanding Indonesia’s maritime future requires listening not only to policy makers and experts, but also to the communities who live, work, and build their futures along its coasts and islands.
