Chapter I — Raja Ampat, Indonesia · 1°52′S 130°03′E
The reef that came
back from the dead.
In 2005, the island of Batbitim was a shark-finning camp. The sharks were going. The reef was going with them. — Misool Foundation
2005
From the air, it looked untouched. Underwater, it was being emptied — dynamite on the reef, cyanide in the lagoons.
Photo: Rolandandika, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
the turn
What turned it around.
- 2005
Two divers, Andrew and Marit Miners, anchor at Batbitim island and find the finning camp.
- the deal
They lease the waters from the villages that own them. The lease pays the villages to keep the reef wild. The fishing stops.
- the guards
Eighteen rangers, hired from those same villages, start patrolling — about a thousand patrols a year, across water bigger than Hong Kong.
- now
Visitor money does what fishing money used to: it pays the villages. The difference is the reef keeps its fish.
— Misool Foundation
below the waterline
This is what they’re guarding.
Photo: Akbar Raf, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
sixteen years of patrols later
The fish came back.
So did the sharks.
- 121,400 hectares
- of sea where no one fishes — Indonesia’s largest no-take zone Misool Foundation
- +248%
- more fish in the water than in 2007, measured by weight Misool Foundation reef monitoring, 2007–2021
- +190%
- more sharks on the reef than in 2012 Misool Foundation reef monitoring, 2012 to now
We read the monitoring reports before we wrote a word of this page. If we couldn’t verify the work, it wouldn’t be here.
how you can help
Stay at Misool.
Fund the patrols.
There is a small lodge on Batbitim — the same island that was the finning camp. The lodge is what pays for all of it: the lease, the rangers, the patrols. Visiting doesn’t take from this reef anymore. It’s what protects it.