fbpixel Indonesia Archives - Mission Blue

Blog Archives
Conservation Efforts Saluted for “Success Story” in Bunaken Marine Park, Indonesia

BUNAKEN MARINE PARK, INDONESIA

Established as a National Park in 1991, the Bunaken Marine Park is a flourishing example of how diving communities can bring about change and ensure that their regions continue to thrive. Dr. Hanny Batuna and his wife Ineke, founded Murex Dive Resorts in the 1980s and since then the family has seen many changes. Dr. Batuna, a pioneer scuba diver in North Sulawesi and he played a pivotal part in the establishment of the park and the diving community. He dedicated time and resources to training other local divers and a strong diving community emerged in the region. Today the North Sulawesi Water Sports Association, which is made up of local dive centers and dive resorts, works together to ensure the ongoing success of this marine reserve.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, Partner Stories, Uncategorized |

Leave a comment
What do you get when passion and private enterprise collide? A story of love, hope and the world’s richest reefs

The Mission Blue Council has just named the Misool Marine Reserve in South Raja Ampat, Indonesia as a Mission Blue Hope Spot. Misool is a shining beacon of hope inside the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse marine ecosystem in the world. Here’s Misool’s story about how conservation and tourism can be the perfect marriage…
Back in 2005, when Raja Ampat was visited only by a handful of daring divers aboard their pirate-esque Phinisi schooners, Marit Miners and her future husband Andrew spent their third date, which lasted nearly a month, diving Misool’s undiscovered reefs. They explored the region’s maze of karst outcroppings and rugged islets.  During a surface interval between dives, the pair stumbled upon a secret beach which was home to an itinerant shark finning camp, clearly contributing to the estimated 100 million sharks killed each year to supply the shark fin soup trade.…

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, mission blue |

5 Comments
Pockets of Hope in the Coral Triangle

By Henley Spiers, Underwater Photographer / Dive Instructor

The Coral Triangle is my favourite place on Earth. I’ve had the privilege of working there for three years as a dive instructor, and I return to it any opportunity I get. I love it there and yet have only seen a fraction of what it has to offer. The Coral Triangle is a massive area which encompasses the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It spans an area 2.2 million square miles big – that’s more than eight times the size of Texas. It is often called the ‘Amazon of the Seas’. This is because it’s the centre of marine biodiversity for planet Earth. Here are a couple of headline facts:

The Coral Triangle holds 76% of the world’s coral species.…

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, mission blue |

Leave a comment
Menjangan Island Coral Reef Conservation

Mission Blue is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Biosphere Foundation! Here’s a word from them on their collaborative work to conserve coral reefs around Indonesia’s Menjangan Island in the Coral Triangle Hope Spot.

Menjangan Island lies off Bali’s northwest shore and is sacred with four Hindu temples and a statue of Ganesha, the god of new beginnings.  People come from all over Bali on holy days to make offerings and prayers at the temples.
Its fringing coral reef is unusual, almost a diversity anomaly for the region, with a wealth of hard corals, sea fans and soft corals.
On paper, the reefs are protected since they lie within Bali Barat National Park (BBNP), but in actuality, they are suffering from an array of negative impacts, such as anchor damage, over-fishing, trash, and climate change.…

Posted in Featured, Partner Stories |

Leave a comment