BUNAKEN NATIONAL PARK, INDONESIA -- Shafts of sunlight radiate through Indonesia's cobalt-blue Sulawesi Sea. A school of white pyramid butterfly fish glides over a drop-off like a snowstorm into the inky depths. Damselfish and neon-coloured anthias hide in coral outcroppings as a solitary tuna patrols the vertical reef looking for an easy meal. I'm 20 metres down, drifting silently in my scuba gear. A resting green sea turtle, startled by my bubbles, takes flight from its perch on a coral head.
Its silhouette soars above me toward a limitless expanse of blue. On a Volkswagen-sized barrel sponge, vibrant orange and yellow feather stars throw their tentacles into the current to catch passing food. Inside the feather stars, a microcosm of the larger reef exists: Elegant squat lobsters, crinoid shrimps and clingfish, perfectly matching the colour of their hosts, live in symbiosis with them.
Bunaken National Park, on the northern arm of the octopus-shaped island of Sulawesi, is a relatively new concept for Indonesia -- it's one of the nation's first actively managed and protected marine parks. The five islands that make up the 900-square-kilometre Bunaken, a 45-minute boat trip from Manado, are well known among divers for their sheer drop-offs and colourful marine life. Biologists refer to the region as the epicentre of marine biodiversity; the reefs have about 1,000 species of fish and 350 species of coral (the Caribbean has about 80). In the southern section of the park are found some of the largest mangrove stands in the Northern Hemisphere.
Although a national park since 1991, Bunaken, like most marine parks in Indonesia, was protected only on paper. Destructive practices such as blast fishing, in which soda bottles stuffed with explosive potassium nitrate are used to kill or stun fish, and cyanide fishing, which is used in the live fish trade, continued throughout the 1990s.
Conflicts often occurred between dive operators and fishermen. In 1998, the North Sulawesi Watersports Association, an industry group of Bunaken's dive businesses, began lobbying for an end to the destructive fishing. Heads of local villages, fishermen, dive operators, and environmental NGOs were all invited to participate in the park's management. An entrance-fee system, based on the Bonaire Marine Park in the Caribbean, was begun in March, 2001. The one-year 150,000 rupiah ($24) fee funds patrols, conservation programs and community development, and raised about $150,000 in 2002. The NSWA lobbied to remove corrupt officials, and a new park manager, Arief Toengkagie, was appointed.
Meeting with Toengkagie in the lobby of the posh Ritzy Manado Hotel, I find it hard to believe that this small, jovial fellow in a golf shirt is the same person who declared war on illegal fishermen in Bunaken National Park. Toengkagie, who previously ran West Java National Park, orders tea and says that once the park patrols started in 2001, he began receiving threats. Local businessmen, with interests in the destructive fishing industry, lobbied to have him reassigned. "The illegal fishing companies tried to get fishermen to go into the park," recalls Toengkagie, smiling. "But together, the community and the patrols stopped them." Several of those illegal fishermen are now in jail.
In other parts of Indonesia, marine police have received death threats, and bombs have been thrown at boats that dare approach illegal fishermen. In the Philippines recently, a marine park ranger was killed by blast fishermen.
Sipping his tea, Toengkagie says that since patrols began, there has been an 11-per-cent increase in live coral cover off Bunaken Island. There has been only one bombing in the park this year and almost no cyaniding. But he laments that more divers aren't coming. The Bali bombing, 9/11 and SARS have trounced tourism in the politically stable and predominantly Christian north Sulawesi. In 2002, only 8,000 foreign tourists visited Bunaken. The park still depends on grants from NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund and Seacology. But Toengkagie is optimistic, and hopes more will come in order to make the park self-sustaining. "Bunaken is special," he beams.
While Toengkagie may have stemmed a destructive tide in Bunaken, the picture outside the guarded enclave is less promising. A few days before my meeting with Toengkagie, I was diving on Bangka Island, a popular destination about two hours by boat from Manado, when our guide, Tono, said he had seen evidence of a bombing. I went back down to explore.
18