SO FAR, SO GOOD SAID TO HARBOR THE WORLD’S GREATEST DIVERSITY OF CORALS AND REEF FISHES, THE REMOTE INDONESIAN ISLANDS OF RAJA AMPAT HAVE ATTRACTED CONSERVATIONISTS AND ADVENTURERS ALIKE OVER THE LAST DECADE. NOW, A PAIR OF LAND-BASED RESORTS ARE BROADENING THE ARCHIPELAGO’S APPEAL BY JOHNNY LANGENHEIM PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES MORGAN

FANTASY ISLANDS Opposite: The lagoon at Wayag, one of Raja Ampat’s seven marine protected areas.

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DESTINASIAN JUNE/JULY 2010 CURRENT AFFAIRS Getting ready to free-dive the coral gardens off Wayag Island. eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, the Coral Triangle harbors the world’s greatest diversity of marine life, with a far greater number and variety of species than are found in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or the Caribbean Sea. And nowhere is it richer than in Raja Ampat, which has been dubbed an “underwater Amazon.” “It’s been pretty much proven conclusively that this is the epicenter of marine biodiversity on the planet,” says American marine biologist Mark Erdmann, who has been managing Conservation International’s Raja Ampat program since it began in 2004. An astonishing 75 percent of all known coral species are found here, as well as over 1,320 fish species and, along the islands’ coastal fringes, a similarly diverse assortment of mangrove and sea grasses. One of the most rewarding parts of Erdmann’s job is tallying these species and discovering new ones; he’s personally recorded 42 types of mantis shrimp, some of them previously undocumented. “And who knows what we’ll find when deep technical diving begins in the area,” he adds. Not that these teeming waters are entirely pristine; as elsewhere WOKEN AT 4 A.M. BY THE LABORED CHUGGING in the Coral Triangle, illegal commercial fishing and destructive of the Monaco’s onboard engine. Despite the hour and the hard deck fishing practices have become an issue, particularly with regard beneath me, I smile with relief: We’re leaving Sorong at last. I slumber to grouper and shark populations. But Raja Ampat’s remoteness until dawn, and then sit up to find flying fish skimming across our and relatively sparse population—some 32,000 people spread wake and the thickly forested coastline of Waigeo, largest of the across myriad villages and hamlets—have offered a measure of eastern Indonesian islands of Raja Ampat, crouching on the horizon. protection, and now NGOs like Conservation International, the A Papuan crewman named Ofni rouses himself and flashes me a Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund are working betel-stained grin. After two days stuck waiting out rough seas in the with local communities to enforce no-fishing zones and develop dreary, dilapidated mainland port of Sorong—pronounce it “So environmentally sustainable sources of income, including Wrong” and you get the picture—he’s as elated as I am to be out on ecotourism. the open water. According to Erdmann, this process has benefited from the “Monaco” is an improbable name for this unglamorous vessel. fact that Papuans, who are of Melanesian rather than Malay Top-heavy and juddering under the strain of her engine, she was stock, “are one of the few peoples that have a system of ancestral once used to fish tuna, a role that has essentially been turned on marine tenure, called sasi. That means they actually own these its head by the boat’s current owners, Washington, D.C.–based reefs, and therefore have a stake in protecting them as assets NGO Conservation International. Today, the rather than Monaco patrols the northernmost of Raja Ampat’s SHORTLY AFTER NOON, WE exploiting them seven newly constituted MPAs—marine protected for short-term areas—in an effort to prevent illegal fishing. We’re MOOR OFF THE VILLAGE gain.” heading there now, to the island of Wayag, where OF SELPELE. FADED Shortly after Conservation International maintains its farthest- WOODEN SHACKS GIVE ON noon, the flung ranger station. TO A BONE-WHITE BEACH Monaco moors Though I could have done without the delay in AND WATER THAT IS THE off the village of Sorong, I’m glad I was able to tag along for the BLUE OF HOT FLAME. Selpele, on the ride. Ofni promises me that Wayag is one of the BEHIND, THICK, GREEN western side of most beautiful places on the planet. No wonder he JUNGLE GATHERS ITSELF Waigeo. Faded and his crewmates keep smiling. wooden shacks AND SURGES SKYWARD with corrugated- RAJA AMPAT MEANS “Four Kings,” a reference to tin roofs give on the archipelago’s main islands of Batanta, Misool, to a bone-white Salawati, and Waigeo. All told, though, Raja Ampat beach and water comprises more than 1,500 islands and coral cays, that is the blue strewn across some 180,000 square kilometers of ocean off the of hot flame. Behind, the jungle gathers itself and surges skyward Bird’s Head Peninsula, which forms the northwestern tip of New —thick, green, electric. The forest canopy here, I learn, harbors Guinea. an impressive menagerie of its own, including the Waigeo cuscus, Officially, Raja Ampat is part of the Indonesian province of all manner of butterflies and reptiles, and a profusion of birds, West Papua. Unofficially, it lies at the very heart of what scientists among them Bruijn’s brush-turkey and two types of birds of ON THE MAP Clockwise from top left: Hengky Dimalouw, an MPA field officer stationed on Wayag; World War II artifacts at Max Ammer’s Sorido Bay; have labeled the Coral Triangle, an equatorial paradise. It was the latter that drew British naturalist Alfred Russel relaxing on a seaside deck at Misool Eco Resort; a lagoon near Misool. region defined by its high concentration of reef- Wallace to Raja Ampat 150 years ago, a journey documented in 86 building corals. Encompassed by the Philippines, his classic work The Malay Archipelago. Wallace stayed on south

DESTINASIAN JUNE/JULY 2010 Waigeo for three months, much of the time frustrated, hungry, packed into a waterproof case, requires vigilant security. and suffering from a debilitating condition that he called “brow- Cameron Maclean, the bluff Australian who manages the ague.” He collected 73 species of birds here—a disappointing operation, takes us out on his speedboat to view some oyster- haul, by Wallace’s standards. But of those, a dozen were entirely cleaning stations, where Papuan workers clad in boiler suits and new to science, and many others quite rare, including several balaclavas scrape barnacles from shells, long lines, and cages. specimens of Paradisaea rubra, the endemic red bird of paradise. There are about 800,000 oysters being cultivated here, so the After helping the Monaco’s crew distribute protein-rich mung work never stops. “We actually sell a lot of pearls at source,” beans as part of a Conservation International–sponsored health Maclean says. “In fact, we’ve done US$2,500 in sales in the last program, I’m introduced to Lukas Ayello, an elder of one of 24 hours.” Selpele’s four main clans. Between them, these families are the Aside from its pearls, the farm also happens to have a world- proprietors of a tract of ocean that extends far to the north, and class reef right off its jetty. Live-aboard dive boats—the mainstay that is now part of Raja Ampat’s growing network of MPAs. of Raja Ampat’s nascent tourism industry—often stop by Aljui Bay “Outsiders used to come here to fish,” Ayello tells me. “They on their way to Wayag. This year, Raja Ampat was visited by more destroyed coral, they used bombs and potassium. Before, we than 30 of these vessels, mostly converted phinisi (ironwood could not stop them. Now, we have help.” schooners built by the seafaring Bugis people of Sulawesi). Men here fish in small outrigger sailing canoes—not the sort It’s late afternoon by the time we’ve finished our tour, and the of craft that can fend off big industrial fishing vessels. But now, Monaco’s captain decides to tie up in Aljui for the night. Yet even thanks to organizations like Conservation International and the out here, civilization manages to insinuate itself. After a galley- Nature Conservancy, there are “floating ranger stations” equipped cooked dinner of salty fish and fried rice, I am lulled to sleep not with powerful by the lapping of waves and the hum of cicadas, engines to help but by a Jakarta chat show that the crew is watching expel trespassers on satellite TV. from protected zones. Offenders, WE REACH WAYAG ISLAND around midday after when caught, another early start. The sea is mottled cobalt and are processed ultramarine and the beach, draped with foliage, according to would send a Maldives travel rep into an envious adat (traditional) funk. But it’s the adjacent lagoon for which Wayag law, which is best known: a maze of shallow channels and essentially boils limestone karsts, which we negotiate carefully in a down to a bunch speedboat from the ranger station. This is where of grim-looking many of the famous aerial shots of Raja Ampat Papuans come from. With no seaplane to call upon, I confiscating scramble instead up the sheer, sharp slopes of one your fishing gear of these nature-hewn outcrops and am rewarded and sending you with a vista of mythical grandeur. This is the very packing, after boundary of the Western Pacific; there is one more you’ve signed a island cluster beyond here, and then pretty much pledge never to nothing until you hit Palau, 900 kilometers to the return. Here, in northeast. the northern Later that afternoon, I go snorkeling off the reaches of Raja island’s northwest coast. It’s my first encounter with Ampat, the Raja Ampat’s famous coral gardens and I find method is myself transfixed by their sheer abundance. I spot a proving quite sea turtle and a coral snake among the more effective. familiar reef species, as well as thick schools of Selpele has pelagic fish and, in the deeper blue beyond the also benefited CATCH OF THE DAY Showing off a freshly caught barracuda, drop-off, sharks and barracuda. from a landmark above. Opposite: The jetty at Misool Eco Resort juts “We do patrols here three times a week and into a shallow cove at the edge of a reef that teems with concession stingrays, juvenile sharks, and bumphead parrotfish. monitoring four times a month,” says Hengky agreement with Dimalouw, a local MPA field officer, as we head one of the back to the station. “But since 2008, we’ve rarely world’s largest seen fishing boats from outside. Before, they used pearl producers, Atlas South Sea Pearl, which has set up a farming to come from as far away as the Philippines.” operation in Aljui Bay, a two-hour boat ride to the north. Apart Dimalouw is also upbeat about the prospects of building a from providing an alternate source of employment for the village’s guesthouse. For that, he is hoping for assistance from one of the fishermen (not to mention its first generator), Atlas helps police conservation organizations working in the area, the area against illegal fishing. Pearl harvesting, I note while who view developing Raja Ampat’s ecotourism watching half a million dollars worth of lustrous orbs being potential—village tours, trekking, bird watching— 89

JUNE/JULY 2010 DESTINASIAN BLUE LAGOON Overlooking Wayag. Opposite: Misool Eco Resort patrols its own waters. as part and parcel of helping communities manage their resources Underwater, the giant gorgonian fans that cling to the banks just in a sustainable fashion. below the surface seem strangely out of place, their delicate To get a sense of that potential, I visit a Dutchman who first lattices coaxed upward by the current as if reaching for the jungle came to Raja Ampat 20 years ago. The Monaco drops me off at his fronds above. Moray eels lurk in holes, and neon nudibranchs island on the way back to Sorong. and shrimp cling to the hard corals. At a depth of 12 meters, I “I originally came here looking for military hardware left over encounter a giant clam that’s almost as big as me. from World War II,” says Max Ammer with a Boy’s Own–style Just why Raja Ampat supports such astonishing diversity of gusto that belies his 48 years. He did well supplying collectors with marine life is a question that scientists are still trying to answer. vintage parts and other assorted relics salvaged from munitions Some emphasize the area’s position at the juncture of the Indian dumps, shipwrecks, and planes—Allied and Japanese—that and Pacific oceans, meaning its fauna comprises components of crashed during fighting here in 1944. But Ammer’s underwater both. Others point to the profusion of different habitats, from treasure hunts revealed other riches, and he eventually diversified white-sand beaches and fringing coral reefs to inland marine into dive tourism. lakes and lagoons where crocodiles and even bull sharks may Ammer now runs Papua Diving, which lurk, to deep ocean operates a pair of resorts on the island of Kri, I AM TRANSFIXED BY THE channels through just to the south of Waigeo, and employs more which blue whales than 100 staff, most of whom are Papuan. SHEER ABUNDANCE OF migrate. They also Opened in 2004, Sorido Bay is the more RAJA AMPAT’S FAMOUS believe that corals luxurious of the two properties. It features seven CORAL GARDENS. I SPOT A here may be more ocean-facing bungalows and a two-story building SEA TURTLE AND A CORAL resistant to stress- built in the manner of a traditional Papuan SNAKE, AS WELL AS THICK induced bleaching, longhouse; the latter comprises an upstairs SCHOOLS OF PELAGIC which could be of restaurant, offices, a kitchen, and a fully FISH AND, IN THE DEEPER key significance in equipped underwater-photography center run BLUE BEYOND, SHARKS the context of by a South African couple. A 10-minute walk global warming. around a headland is Kri Eco Resort, Ammer’s AND BARRACUDA There’s no first resort on the island. It is basic but beguiling, shortage of funding with half a dozen wooden cottages built on stilts for scientific surveys above the water. Peering below its long jetty, I in Raja Ampat, and am lucky enough to glimpse a slender epaulette much has been shark, a new species of which was discovered in the Bird’s Head learned in the decade since scientists began working here. area in 2006. Ammer, however, would prefer to see more resources put into Kri also falls within a Conservation International–managed enforcing the no-fishing zones. “It’s like having a ship with a leak MPA, and Ammer, himself a passionate conservationist, works and measuring how long it will take before it sinks. You have to closely with both the NGO and neighboring villages to discourage fix the leak first.” destructive fishing practices. “Education—that will be the most important thing in the long term,” he says. IT TAKES FOUR HOURS on a fast 14-meter boat to get to Misool After lunch, I’m given a bird’s-eye perspective on protection Eco Resort from Sorong, the inescapable gateway to all of Raja from an altitude of 300 meters. It’s amazing just what you can see Ampat’s islands. The resort lies in the southern reaches of the from up here; Ammer, who is piloting this two-seater ultralight, archipelago, off the main island of Misool; from the rise just points out a dugong and a pair of reef sharks. Conservation behind it, the coastline of Seram, part of the Moluccas chain International provided the plane with the proviso that Ammer (Indonesia’s erstwhile Spice Islands), is faintly visible on the clock a certain number of hours each month patrolling the MPA. horizon. “You see everything from up here—illegal fishing boats can’t Englishman Andrew Miners first arrived in this hinterland as hide from you,” he tells me over the intercom. In a moment of a dive guide on a phinisi schooner, and promptly decided to set uncanny synchronicity, a dilapidated seiner appears in a cove, up a conservation center. That idea evolved as he acquired trailing an oily slick. We drop down to 20 meters to let them investors and soon he was committed to building a full-fledged know they’ve been seen. eco-resort. It was an intrepid undertaking for a dive master from The following day we free-dive the Passage, a narrow, sinuous, Cornwall, his wife, and the ragtag group of dive enthusiasts who kilometer-long channel that winds between Waigeo and the helped create the place, none of whom had a background in the island of Gam before opening onto a picturesque gulf. Wallace hospitality trade. “Andrew’s a bit of a Svengali,” says his Swedish- sailed through here in 1860 aboard a native outrigger, recording American wife, Marit, when I ask how he managed to persuade that: “Every islet was covered with strange-looking shrubs and investors that the idea would fly. Once that had happened and trees, and was generally crowned by lofty and elegant palms, the Miners had secured a lease on Batbitim Island from its owners which also studded the ridges of the mountainous shores, in Yellu, a village on Misool proper, all that remained was to forming one of the most singular and picturesque landscapes I build the resort. WATER WORLD Clockwise from top left: Touring the crystal-clear waters around Misool Eco Resort; one of the area’s ancient petroglyphs; Raja Ampat’s have ever seen.” “It took us two and a half years—we opened at the end of coral gardens offer spectacular diving; inside a bungalow at Sorido Bay. The Passage itself is less than 30 meters wide at 2008,” says Andrew, a soft-spoken man with a stubborn set to his 92 points. It feels more like a river than a strait. jaw. “There are 600 tons of wood (Continued on page 134)

DESTINASIAN JUNE/JULY 2010 RAJA AMPAT Fact File

more than 60 dive Raja Ampat toward the end of that period). Note that Misool Eco Lodge sites within an will be closed for maintenance hour’s speedboat from mid-June to October, ride of the resort, GETTING THERE which roughly coincides with 20 of them just 10 From Jakarta, both Merpati the rainy season. minutes away. All (merpati.co.id)and Express Air (expressair.biz) fly daily to WHERE TO STAY display a profusion Sorong via Makassar on The more accessible of Raja of soft, pretty Sulawesi. The latter flights are Ampat’s resort islands is Kri, corals in pristine best as they arrive in Sorong at where Sorido Bay (62-951/ condition. A close 11:50 a.m., in time for the 328-038; papua-diving.com; (Continued from page 92) here, and all of inspection of a huge afternoon boat transfers to both from about US$298 per person, it is salvaged.” Andrew and his team did sea fan reveals Misool and Kri. Connections full board) offers an excellent from Bali require a night’s stay base for exploring the dive the salvaging themselves, with the help of pygmy seahorses; in Makassar. sites (including a number of a mobile sawmill that allowed them to cut two centimeters in WWII wrecks) of the southern fallen trees on neighboring islands and length and expertly WHEN TO GO Waigeo area. Longer-stay float them back to Batbitim. Such building camouflaged, Raja Ampat is a year-round packages including four dives materials are not the resort’s only green they are among destination, with dive a day are also available, while credentials. Treated waste water and Raja Ampat’s conditions at their best from Sorido’s rustic sister property, October through May (expect Kri Eco Resort, offers cheaper organic fertilizer nourish gardens of giant more famous and more sharks and pelagics accommodation from US$142 heliconia, lemongrass, and ginger. Roofs recently discovered per person per night. are clad in a thick insulating layer of inhabitants. You’ll have to commit Pa WAYAG cific Oc alang-alang thatch from Seram, where it is Another day, we ean a minimum of seven INDONESIA harvested in abundance. And the Miners’ cruise through a Aljui Bay nights to stay at Misool house, built on a nearby islet, gets its lagoon studded with WAIGEO Eco Resort (Batbitim Island; no telephone; power from solar panels and a wind turbine. jungle-shrouded The Passage KRI misoolecoresort.com; The couple row to and from work each islets. Some of Sorong packages from US$1,838 day. “I do mornings, he does afternoons,” these feature 5,000- BATANTA per person, including Marit says with a smile. year-old petroglyphs SALAWATI meals, transfers, and a NEW The outcome is testament to the power of handprints, GUINEA night’s accommodation in Sorong on the return of DIY ingenuity and sheer grit. The resort dolphins, and trip), but even that is comprises nine overwater cottages, a dive geometrical patterns Seram barely enough time to MISOOL Sea center, and a restaurant pavilion, all painted by some N scratch the surface of 40 km Misool this remarkable corner connected by weathered wooden walkways forgotten peoples. Eco Resort suspended above a shallow cove on the Later, we float into of the archipelago. –JL edge of Misool’s house reef, which literally a cave of cathedral- teems with life. Without even getting in esque dimensions, the water I see stingrays, octopus, baby reef its soaring roof sharks, and bumphead parrotfish, not to bristling with stalactites. They’re coming back, but it will take a mention a host of more familiar reef “Nowhere else I know offers such decade for things to stabilize again.” species. It’s not so much the understated spectacularly beautiful scenery both above Baby reef sharks are a regular sight at luxury that’s striking here—plush double and below water,” Andrew says over Misool. Stand in the lagoon’s shallows, bed under a diaphanous mosquito net, afternoon tea on the veranda of the resort’s and they’ll swim fearlessly past you; Marit outdoor bathroom, broad wooden veranda circular restaurant, a daily ritual here. “It’s tells me she’s spotted as many as 17 here at with built-in hammock, and steps leading the combination that’s so special—reefs to one time. It’s emblematic, I suppose, of directly into the water—but an abiding rain forests.” the regenerative power of nature, and sense of castaway calm. The sky is While the Nature Conservancy is the seems all the more significant here in this immense and kinetic; I watch great banks main NGO working in the area, Misool great cradle of marine diversity. For as of cumulus form on the horizon above a Eco Resort patrols its own 450-square- Andrew says, “It might sound dramatic, row of limestone karsts, which local legend kilometer MPA using a boat purchased but this place is of global importance.” claims were deposited there by a race of with grants from Wild Aid and the Coral On my last night with the Miners, I giants. Reef Alliance. The Miners are now grab my snorkel gear and drop off the jetty Under the water, things are just as working to extend the MPA to 1,200 into darkness. My flashlight illuminates a spectacular and otherworldly. There are square kilometers—an area almost twice phalanx of blue fusiliers weaving their way the size of Singapore. en masse among the jetty’s coral-encrusted “You know, this used to be a shark- piers. Then I dive down deeper and switch finning camp,” Marit adds matter-of-factly. off the light. The blackness and silence is “You only see babies now because the complete, yet I can feel the pulse of life all 134 adult population was almost decimated. around me. DESTINASIAN JUNE/JULY 2010