More than 65 students from Jakarta have returned home after visiting Bali, where they eagerly learned about Reef Check coral reef monitoring.

This is the fourth year in a row that Reef Check has worked with students from Santa Lauresia High School on their annual trip to Bali. Baca selengkapnya »

The Information Day was on the 3rd of March 2012. It was to inform the students from the Tejakula school about waste and the danger of waste for the environment. The place was the Tempat Pengolahan Sampah Terpadu – Waste and Recycling Depot Tejakula. It was very good for the children to see a place where selected waste is processed.

The project was supported by Reef Check Indonesia and Gaia Oasis. Dirga Agus Sudirga (Gaia Oasis) and I, Felicitas Neunhoeffer (Reef Check), organized this Information Day together. I planned the content while Dirga talked to the school, the people from the village, the people from the depot and get the permission for the students to come. Baca selengkapnya »

A recent article in Coral Reefs, the Journal of the International Society for Reef Studies, outlines some interesting learnings about fishing within Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs). It finds that permanent ‘no take’ closures as opposed to temporary ones are a very important part of an effective Marine Protected Area (MPA).

The article documents observations recorded before, during and one-year after a ‘no-take’ zone in Fiji was opened up to a five-week temporary fishing harvest.

During and after the harvest, the authors observed lower biomasses (size of fish), lower numbers of fish and an increase in turf algae.

The study demonstrates “that a single intensive harvest event can quickly remove almost all positive effects of protection on fish biomass and subsequent reproductive output in a marine protected area.”

The temporary lifting of the no-take closure is also thought to have eroded the compliance with the local management rules.

You can read the extract of the article online free here.