Wednesday 30 April 2014
Mooring Expedition
Sunday 2 March 2014
A day in the monsoon forest of Bali Barat National Park
Julian and myself measuring and tagging the new trees. |
Sierra, Pak Albertus, and crew after a long, hot day in the forest. |
A cleared plot with the freshly planted trees. You can see how much Lantana was present due to the amount of exposed soil. |
The saplings in their plastic bags, ready to be planted in the soil with room to breathe! |
Carefully removing the trees from their transportation, Hati Hati! |
More little trees. |
Sierra preparing for a day of measuring and reinforcing the trees. |
Material used to help tie the trees to bamboo sticks so they grow up and not out. |
This is the infamous, Trengulli. It was very small when we planted it, and now within one month has grown to a substantial size. Beautiful tree. |
Sierra measuring and inspecting. |
Pak Albertus excited about a day of planting, and spending time in the forest. He knows so many different plant species, it was fun to learn from him! |
Maybe about 25 trees hauled into the forest on the back of a bike. |
Myself, and the crew! |
Monday 17 February 2014
Menjangan Buoys
Monday 8 April 2013
Nyepi
Nyepi is a sacred day of silence and no work in Bali to reflect on the past year. However this is not shared by neighbouring islands and in previous years this day has been used as an opportunity for fishermen from Java to come to North West Bali to Menjangan island while it is unprotected and use dynamite to catch the fish. The dynamite destroys the coral habitat causing lasting damage to the reef and fish comunity.This year a group of commited rangers and Friends of Menjangan stayed guard a the island and kept away approaching fishermen.
Here the story is told by Pak Suparno:
“Our experience during silent day at Menjangan Island. Silent day in Bali was celebrated on 12th March 2013. This is the time when boat men from Java, take a chance for catching fish in Menjangan by Dynamite fishing. During the time the rangers of the park take off because they have to celebrate the silent day with their family. So we are the people who also want to protect the island. We don’t want to loose the coral and fish over there. So we had an idea to stay at Menjangan Island for two days. We are 46 people coming to Menjangan Island on 11th March in the afternoon. The people came from Labuan Lalang and Banyuwedang harbor.
We arrive at Menangan at around 4 o’clock and we found several boat over there from Java. We suspect they are catching fish. We don’t want to confront them so we tried to negotiate and asked them to leave Menjangan. We also tried to explain that Menjangan is protected and catching fish with Dynamite can destroy the reef. In the night at 01:30, we patrol the island and found nothing but in the morning on 12th march around 05:00 we found one boat with two men catching fish with nets and walking on the corals. We took them to the ranger station and put some questions to them, and asked them why they catch fish there. We also explain to them they are destroying the coral by walking on it. They made a statement later for us that they will not do it again.
At 12:30 we found several big boats from Java also try to get closer to Menjangan island. So we all showed our force and presence at the island to intimidate them. So they did not get any closer. The people in the boat also stood up facing us.. like a challenge – we stayed there not moving then after 1 and half hours they moved away. When they are leaving we returned to the ranger station.
After that all was quiet until in the night at 01:30 we patrolled again and found nothing.
We hope that these men will tell others in Java that Menjangan Island is secure and taken care of – controlled even in the silent day, and so there will less next year. We are coming again in the silent day next year with more people but we hope there will be no boats.”
Saturday 23 July 2011
Saturday 11 June 2011
Monday 6 June 2011
Education Program
“Friends of Menjangan Education Program”
- 13 and 14 of May, 2011 -
The weekend after the Celebration, 18 kids from the Children of Permuteram Association were invited for a camping program that started at SERC (Science, Education and Research Centre of Menjangan Resort) and ended at the Menjangan Island with a mangrove clean-up.
The kids labelled the water bottles with their names to “re-use” plastic in an intelligent way!!
Circling together with Nono and Satyavan, the educators leading the program, we took an oath to protect each other and our mother nature.
Leslie and the kids in a bird watching activity around the savannas.
Natural Guides… in this activity one plays the role of a photographer, while the other turns into a camera. A lot of fun to understand nature!
The word “menjangan” stands for deer, the sacred animals that live in the area and have also being on the spot of the conservation programs carried by the Menjangan Resort.
Next morning the kids took a trail through the Monsoon Forest, the Savannas, the Mangroves and a boat to Menjangan Island. There we found a sea of rubbish stuck in the mangroves…
Mangroves – Cradle of Life!
Working hard as a team to clean our footprints and let earth breath!
After cleaning the area by the temple, we all got together to sing and dance our commitment to protect our Mother Nature!
We all head back home…
… Planet Earth, Planet Water - Our One Home!
Satyavan Rogério