Quarterly Report Bira June 2023

Ben and Jess- Raja Ampat Project Co-Managers

It’s been a few months of change here in Bira. A big thanks to Sigrid for looking after the project until we arrived in April, and could get started. Having been in Bira for a Research Internship last year, it was no time before we were right back at home. 

A big part of that was our fantastic interns who are sailing through their Divemaster programs and are enthusiastically involved in all the surveys, BRUV drops and other science that the project requires. Since the last report we are happy to be able to congratulate these wonderful graduates, and thank them for their contribution to the ongoing work in Bira: Jack Telford (UK), Désiree Peters (Netherlands), Isobel Holmes (UK), Heather Green (UK), Navindra Pradeesh (India), Briony Venn (UK), Sophia Celine Holleschovsky (Germany), Tony Wilkinson (UK), Emma Wilkinson (UK) and Tia DeHarpport (USA).

In the last few months, we have completed 21 ecology courses, many led by Serena who visited in May to share her knowledge and love of all things underwater, continue our training, and deliver a care package of cheese from the distant metropolis of Bali! We were all well fed in body and mind – thank you Serena!

There’s rarely a dive in Bira that we don’t spot whitetip reef sharks, marble rays, eagle rays, and turtles, but we had rare visitors at the beginning of June when Jess’s group saw a rare sunfish (Mola alexandrini), and Blue Planet guide Rocky spotted five together on his safety stop. Not only this, it was a BRUV drop dive and it was a wonderful moment hearing Qinthan and Ben’s shouts of delight when they watched the footage back and realised we’d caught one on camera. Guess what everyone’s favourite dive site is now?!

As is often the case in Blue Planet things keep evolving and improving under the tireless leader that is Sylvain Marty, with Bira increasing intern numbers to 10 from June we saw a brand new accommodation house built as well as some fancy new showers and toilets for all to enjoy, above this new accommodation is a wonderful little space with a view to die for where interns can chill, and we are able to teach the smaller workshops. The Oro Jackson has undergone a short dry dock spell for some maintenance and repairs, and has come back newly painted and at the ready for some more amazing dives.  It was joyful to see her back at her berth and so heartwarming to see the whole Bira family come together in such a time of crisis. We didn’t realise how much we loved that boat until it was gone.

Ashore, hundreds of mangrove propagules were collected and planted, school visits conducted and over a hundred kilograms of rubbish was taken off the beach. We celebrated the birthdays of Tony, Rocky, Gareth, Petra and Qinthan, with bonfires, dinners, games of pool and cheese cake, and movie night was inaugurated with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, followed by Finding both Nemo and Dory (for research purposes). In their free time interns continue to enjoy self-lead yoga mornings, HIIT training and even some dance classes lead by Jess –  sometimes they even venture out of the resort to viewpoints, new warungs and soak in all that Bira has to offer – including the famous Taco Tuesdays at Seascapes, Friday curry nights at Tevana and any night can be a delicious evening with pool and laughter at nearby Akasha. Bira is a place where everyone feels at home.

Now our Marine Biologist and ‘buboss’ Qinthan will update you all on her scientific explorations.

Qinthan Aulia- Program Coordinator and Marine Biologist

Our journey has not finished yet – We believe that everyone can do science and conservation, from whatever background and wherever country they are from. From March to June, many things have been happening in our science developments, following the changing environmental conditions throughout the year. 

The new interns are coming to the right place and at the right time. They have learned how to identify fish for the first time, both from on land workshops and real-life underwater practice. The senior interns always tell them lots of stories from their experiences in and out of Bira. Fish identification in Bira never gets boring, due to diving being so magical, a lot of surprises have amazed us. Schools of bigeye trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus), pickhandle barracuda (Sphyraena jello), chevron barracuda (Sphyraena qenie), rainbow runner (Elagatis bipinnulata), and even a MOLA (Mola alexandrini)!! What an amazing dive we had one day at Mola Mola dive site in Kambing, when the guys saw a number molas during the dive. Also, our favourite Elasmobranch friends are still around us, such as whitetip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus), blacktip reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus), grey reef sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos), marble rays (Taeniurops meyeni), spotted eagle rays (Aetobatus ocellatus), and many more. As we all know, sharks love current, so our interns here are trained so well in doing surveys in currents that they love it. The experience they get here is worth it. 

Survey’s & BRUV’s

We love to keep the interns busy seeing a lot of fish species in the roving survey because that way they can have more practical learning opportunities. Some of them prefer to see larger pelagics in the blue while some others love to see reef fish on the corals. This makes our team a DREAM TEAM! The surveys will never be complete without our BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video). With BRUVs, we are able to take video footage for a longer time underwater. BRUV will help to discover key habitat zones around Bira and help to catalog the amazing marine biodiversity we have in the region. Every person in the team has their job to do, such as the BRUV leader who is bringing the frame, bait person, camera person, water quality analyzer and SMB. Dropping the BRUV is never as easy as it looks, because sometimes we have to deal with the challenging conditions that can happen on any dive. It helps the interns to practice their teamwork which is vital to a successful BRUV deployment and retrieval. We also have so much fun dropping the BRUV! So far, BRUV drops are still the intern’s favourite dive. Currently, the IOP Bira team has completed 97 BRUV drops in total – BRUV 100 coming soon! The best BRUV video footage we have in recent drops is a marble ray and a mola passing by in front of our GoPro around the sites in Kambing.

Coral Reef Health Monitoring

Coral Restoration

Extreme seasonal weather conditions this year resulted in some damage to our coral nurseries. We have fixed the structures located at our house reef and have repositioned the nursery tables. Marine biologists Qinthan and Pascal moved the coral nubbins from the broken table structure to the newly positioned tables. We have also dropped 5 new reef stars and planted 120 new coral nubbins, expanding our nursery sites at Blue Planet House Reef. We will continue to monitor the progress and hope the corals will grow strong.

Marine Debris

We continue our coastal and in water clean up activities to help engage more local people of Bira in environmental stewardship. We invite the public to join us by collecting debris on scheduled dives or beach clean ups. It sometimes feels like a never ending job because the colliding ocean currents in Sulawesi’s southern peninsula always brings in more marine debris. What we can do is a small step for a bigger impact, conducting beach and underwater clean ups with the intention of data collection to help understand the root of the plastic problem while engaging the local community to take action. In the last three months the IOP Bira team has completed 5 Dive Against Debris with 10.45 kg trash removed and 3 Beach Clean-ups with 174.35 kg trash collected.

Educational Outreach Program

We continue to join the Tanking Bira Kindergarten every Friday for our weekly school visits. This program is part of an education project at IOP to help promote youth ocean advocates by sharing knowledge and creating cross cultural bonds. We combine physical exercise, English classes, and ocean based games or crafts in our weekly curriculum. It is like a long-term investment in the next generation to protect nature, especially the ocean. During Ramadan, we were not able to do any physical exercise in the morning out of respect for the national holiday, but we were still able to do some fun in-class activities. As always, we were teaching them English, starting with simple greetings, alphabets and numbers. It is also a great way to build confidence in the kids ability to speak and practice with the interns. The kids are always excited to stand up in front of the class and share their alphabet skills with their friends and the IOP interns. In the last few months we have tried out a few new crafts that help engage the children in marine conservation. We made shark paper crafts from empty paper toilet rolls, watched Finding Nemo on our new projector, and drew and learned about marine life with printed pictures. Surprisingly, this was the first ‘western cartoon’ that the kids and the teachers watched, and it was a big hit. Using Finding Nemo as a platform, we introduced the kids to the marine biodiversity in their own backyard. We will host more movie showings in the future. We always end up taking some pictures at the end of the school day with smiles all round.

Mangrove Nursery & Restoration

Last but not least, the IOP Bira team is still taking care of the mangrove nursery and the baby mangroves are now growing! We can see the leaves come out and roots anchoring in the pots. The Bira team also visited mangrove Luppung to collect the new propagules on the 23rd of May and planted them in our nursery with a total of 231 propagules potted. We will continue to monitor the propagule growth and slowly introduce water with higher levels of salinity over the coming weeks. We wait patiently for our next planting event which will happen when the baby mangroves reach an optimal height and leaf number for the best chance at success in their forever home.