Sea Communities

Sea Communities (PT Komunitas Laut Nusantara) is continuing the work of STARR (Scientific Trial Active Reef Rehabilitation) to connect local community members and recreational divers with scientists in the goal of conducting science-based coral restoration and monitoring. The PADI AWARE grant funds work that builds upon prior experimentation to develop successful human intervention to promote healthy coral reefs and continue research to ensure best practices are used. 

Sea Communities, are using the scientific method to answer questions about the success rate of human efforts to regrow coral in Bali.

The reefs of Les village, North Bali, were devastated by cyanide fishing between 1987 to 2000. In 2000, the local fisherfolk started using sustainable netting methods instead, and went on to build artificial reefs using concrete platforms. Sea Communities works with the fisherfolk community, local divers, nondivers, tourists, and marine scientists from universities around the world such as National University of Singapore (NUS), Murdoch University (WA, Australia) and Southern Cross University (NSW, Australia), to restore the coral habitat and bring back marine life.

Partnering with scientists allows the restoration efforts to be founded on scientific research, such as:

1. Trialing the efficacy of different coral attachment methods using locally available materials

2. Creation of broodstock of non-branching coral in nurseries to be used for future transplants instead of harvesting wild corals

2. Determining the feasibility of coral restoration through in situ (local) micro-fragmentation

4. Making in situ coral rearing easy and accessible to coastal communities

Additionally the program offers PADI AWARE-STARR scholarships to four youth leaders from around the world and two PADI AWARE-STARR open water dive traineeships for the local community.

Sea Communities' business model is to engage dive voluntourism and educational tourism to demonstrate that conservation can be done cheaply with locally available resources, and can generate better and sustainable livelihoods.

“Many coral restoration initiatives by local communities don't have a science-based approach,” says Elaine Kwee, Co-Founder of Sea Communities. “Mother Nature is powerful, and it is time we find out if our human effort to regrow coral can help at all.”

Want to see more of Sea Communities in action?

You can follow along with Sea Communities and their coral restoration project on their website, Instagram, Facebook, or on https://www.padi.com/aware.