Common Coral: BandaSEA e.V. — No-Trash Triangle Initiative

This article is the first of our new series, ‘Common Coral’, in which we’ll celebrate the work of organisations across the Coral Triangle that share our values of conservation, education, research and community work. Cleaning and protecting the Coral Triangle, the global home of marine biodiversity, is a huge challenge. It can only be achieved through collaboration, so join us as we meet those we work alongside.

Who better for the first post in our series than BandaSEA e.V.? Last year they marked their 10th anniversary, and here we’ll take a look at what they do, how they do it, and why their work is so important.

Common Coral: BandaSEA e.V

On their 10th anniversary, we explore the BandaSEA e.V story

Part 1: The Banda Islands in a Nutmeg Shell

On the 9th of May 1988, on the coast of Banda Api, the Banda Sea hissed and boiled. Lava oozed down the southern face of the Gunung Api volcano, scarring the forest, creeping over the coast and into the water. 7,000 people were evacuated as the 16km tall eruption blackened the sky. Below, the molten rock was pooling at the ocean bed, demolishing the coral reefs in its path (1,2).

These were special reefs; the Banda islands are home to 64% of all known coral species on earth, and 500 other species including hammerhead and thresher sharks, rays and turtles (3). Around Banda Api their ecosystems were destroyed in days, by nature itself.

Nobody would have expected that within just five years this habitat would spring back to life. Marine biologists scrambled from across the world to Banda Api to understand how the reef had made such a startling return to high biodiversity (4). The vibrant reefs regenerated, once again home to 124 coral species, sharks and rays (4). It is a heartening case study of the resilience of nature.

The eleven Banda Islands are remote, even by the standards of the Coral Triangle. They lie In the Maluku province of Indonesia. Banda Api, the site of the eruption, sits next to Banda Neira, the administrative capital, and Banda Besar, the largest of the islands. They are known for the rich culture of their 22,000 people, especially the Kora-Kora boat race, and as the original home of nutmeg. Recently the islands are emerging as a hotspot for marine tourism (5).

Modern Problems

Sadly, the Banda Islands are not excused from the modern problems of the Coral Triangle; their natural beauty is threatened by human interference. Plastic pollution and unsustainable fishing are rapidly damaging these coral reefs, which in turn is threatening the livelihoods of many Banda people.

Part 2: The Story

The warning signs were clear ten years ago, when Dr. Mareike Huhn (a marine biologist), Stefan Eggers and Guido Weißenfeld founded BandaSEA. Although the NGO is based in Germany, they brought together local leaders, marine ecologists, dive instructors and project managers to protect this small but significant patch of the Coral Triangle. They set to work tackling these problems and described their aim as creating ‘a mutual and sustainable co-existence between humans and the marine environment’ (3).

The work of BandaSEA

BandaSEA was founded on the Banda Islands in 2012. It started off with plastic waste clean-ups and developed into a sophisticated plastic waste management, recycling and environmental education program. The program is run by the local foundation Luminocean – Yayasan Cahaya Samudera Indonesia, which was also cofounded by Mareike as Indonesian partner organisation to BandaSEA. Together with local residents, BandaSEA and the Luminocean foundation are working hard to address multiple aspects of waste management.

Waste management: Pick up system

The humble bin truck is taken for granted by many but in remote locations around the planet including the Banda Islands, regular rubbish pick ups simply don’t happen, leaving residents with little choice but to burn their trash or throw it in the sea. Similarly to what we’ve done on Bangka, BandaSEA in collaboration with Luminocean trialed a new waste pick up system in the village of Merdeka. By providing the villagers with rice bags and working with some of the local men, a new system was developed that after 1.5 years became self-sustaining. Once a successful pilot had been run, Elsa Santika (co-founder of Luminocean) worked together with Maga Ali who heads up Luminocean to extend the system to other villages.

Thanks to the team’s work with BandaSEA, this sustainable system has since been adopted in ten villages across the Banda Islands since 2013. The NGO has now started to pick up plastic for recycling from all villages across the Banda Islands. Whilst these new systems are being established in new villages, the team also work hard to educate the communities about how to sort and prepare plastic for recycling. In other words, they have established a model that can spread throughout the Banda Islands; its growth fuelled by its proven success.

Education: ‘Teach a man to fish sustainably…’

You’re probably reading this because you feel strongly about the environment. For many of us, this interest stems from childhood, as awe-inspiring experiences with nature can stay with us for life. Just like the No-Trash Triangle Initiative, BandaSEA understands how powerful the potential of education is in the fight to protect the planet.

Reef ecosystems across the Coral Triangle, and Banda Islands themselves, cannot survive if current fishing practices continue. Fish bombing obliterates reefs as collateral damage for a high yield, and fine mesh nets kill practically all species in their path (7). BandaSEA tackles this issue at its roots by educating children.

BandaSEA and Luminocean teach marine ecology, swimming lessons and trips to snorkel over coral reefs, facilitating those formative moments of inspiration. In years to come, when the youth grow up and take to the seas, they will be better informed to balance making a living in the short term and being sustainable in the long term.

In 2017/18, the team opened an environmental education centre on Pulau Hatta and a new office and afternoon school in Kampung Baru, providing facilities where kids can learn computers, English, art and about environmental issues. BandaSEA volunteers help with the teaching. This also acts as an education hub for tourists who travel from across the world to snorkel and dive around these islands. The school gives visitors a chance to learn about the organisation’s efforts, with the aim of ‘sensitising tourists to be aware of their host community’s culture and nature’

Children at the plastic free school BandaSEA helped organise (9)

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Having set up a successful waste pick up and education program, the team turned their attention to developing proper recycling facilities on the Banda islands. We know that a significant proportion of the plastic produced by households and found on our beaches is recyclable. And so BandaSEA used funding received from the Tirto Utomo Foundation and German Embassy in Jakarta to build a recycling facility. The team are actually operating a pyrolysis plant at the moment, using PP and PE plastics to make diesel, benson and kerosene. Here, they also shred PET to make it easier to transport to Surabaya for recycling and sort aluminium coated packages for up cycling into wallets.

Part 3: The bigger picture

BandaSEA’s last 10 years are filled with major achievements. The islands are now cleaner and more environmentally minded, with more diverse sources of income because of the NGO’s work alongside the Banda people. They have demonstrated what can be done in the Coral Triangle around the issues of waste management, education and conservation, despite all the complications of being so remote. Their values are closely aligned with our own at the No-Trash Triangle Initiative and we congratulate them on a decade of dedication and success.

The truth is that the problems that BandaSEA and the No-Trash Triangle Initiative address are not going to go away overnight. They are actually becoming more pressing and more pervasive across the Coral Triangle every year.

Humanity’s impact on the natural world has erupted within a few lifetimes. Just like the lava of Gunung Api creeping across the ocean floor, our actions are destroying reefs rapidly. We cannot expect these ecosystems to resurrect themselves, as they did in 1988, no matter what we put them through. At the very least we know that when the conditions are right, and they are left undisturbed, the potential for a delicate recovery is there: it is not too late to save them.

That’s why environmental organisations across the Coral Triangle (just like BandaSEA and The No-Trash Triangle Initiative) need your support; to defend our common coral.

Bibliography

1.Report on Banda Api (Indonesia) — May 1988

https://volcano.si.edu/showreport.cfm?doi=10.5479/si.GVP.SEAN198805-265090

2. Banda Api volcano

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/banda-api.htm

3. What we do

https://www.bandasea.org/what-we-do/

4. Tomascik, T., Van Woesik, R. and Mah, A.J., 1996. Rapid coral colonization of a recent lava flow following a volcanic eruption, Banda Islands, Indonesia. Coral Reefs, 15(3), pp.169-175.

5. The Historic and Marine Landscape of the Banda Islands

https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6065/#:~:text=It%20consists%20of%20eleven%20small,earliest%20European%20ventures%20in%20Asia.

6. We are BandaSEA

https://www.bandasea.org/about/

7. Education in sustainable fishing techniques

https://www.bandasea.org/projects/education-in-sustainable-fishing-techniques/

8. The Banda islands, Jakarta Post, https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2019/09/03/10-great-reasons-to-visit-the-banda-islands.html

9. BandaSEA e.V. facebook, https://www.facebook.com/bandasea.org/