Menjangan Buoys

After an extraordinary voyage from Singapore to Bali, Mir is finally moored in North West Bali. With a lot of time and effort we helped the Biosphere Foundation establish an inland field station at Ketut Astawa's home. From this base, many projects, which have been developed over the years, will be worked on and monitored. Agriculture, forestry, and conservation work on Menjangan Island are just some of the projects that we are leading and participating in. Recently on January 21^st, 2014, myself, some other members of Biosphere Foundation and The Friends of Menjangan teams have collaborated to take a boat out to Menjangan Island and with the use of a GPS system have managed to map out all thirty-four mooring buoys around the Island. It was fascinating watching Gede, one of the team members of Friends of Menjangan, taking old red bottles and stuffing them with Styrofoam as a flotation device for the moorings rope. He began showing us how to tie the red bottles together with an intricate pattern that resembles a fishing net. The difference was that this time the net like pattern was weaved both literally and metaphorically to protect and attempt to give back to the island, its life and beauty. We discovered two buoys needed to be replaced, and four buoys needed new red bottles which help incoming boats see their location.  The rest of the mooring buoys were in good condition. The Friends of Menjangan have also been consistently removing two invasive species, Drupella snails and Crown of Thorns starfish which have been a detriment to the coral. Our efforts are improving the conditions of the coral and its inhabitants in subtle but impactful ways.