Quarterly Report Bira June 2025

Grégoire Bouillion (Greg)– Project Manager

As we mark the end of another dynamic quarter in Bira, I am thrilled to share the exciting milestones, new beginnings, and steady growth that have defined the past three months. From team expansions to inspiring marine encounters and fresh initiatives, this season has been one of transformation, connection, and momentum.

A Warm Welcome to Kert-Kaspar, Our New Coordinator

We are delighted to announce that our Bira team is now complete! Joining us from Estonia, Kert-Kaspar Kärema has stepped into the coordinator role with confidence and commitment. A recent graduate from IOP Nusa Penida, Kert demonstrated both diving proficiency and strong leadership during his internship. His arrival has already lightened our load, and we’re all grateful for his energy, efficiency, and team spirit. Welcome aboard, Kert!

Celebrating Our Interns and Divemasters

This quarter, we were lucky to have a talented and diverse group of interns and trainees join our conservation and Divemaster programs. A big round of applause to:

We’re incredibly proud of each of them and grateful for their enthusiasm, resilience, and commitment to learning and ocean protection.

Seasonal Shifts & Sightings

As always, the changing winds remind us how fluid and adaptable we must be in this region. The beginning of June marked what may have been our last dives on the east side for the season, and our teams made the most of it by maximizing research dives and data collection in those sites.

Fortunately, the seasonal shift also signals the start of high season, and we’re excited to report that Kambing Island—especially the beloved Eagle Rock site—is once again easily accessible. Despite the strong currents, this site has already rewarded us with spectacular sightings, including a Tiger shark and  Grey reef sharks — moments that fuel our conservation passion and awe for the ocean.

New Projects, New Energy

This quarter brought several improvements to daily life and operations:

• A cozy “comfy area” has been set up upstairs in the office to offer a relaxing, functional workspace for staff and interns.
• We’ve introduced glass cups and reusable boxes for intern use to reduce plastic consumption—an effort reinforced during our beach cleanups, where plastic pollution remains a persistent concern.
• Our community traditions are stronger than ever, with more frequent potlucks bringing everyone together through food and laughter.
• And perhaps most exciting: the launch of Science Nights! These informal evening sessions allow staff—and soon interns—to present previous research, conservation topics, or deep dives into IOP’s science and methods.

   

Looking Ahead

This quarter has been a testament to what we can achieve when passion meets collaboration. With a complete and energized team, a growing community of dedicated interns, and the high season bringing rich opportunities for conservation work and marine exploration, we are set for a strong second half of the year.

Thank you to all our interns, staff, partners, and local community members for your continued commitment, curiosity, and kindness.

Sudaryanto –  Marine Biologist and Project Coordiator 

The season finally has started to coming back!!! This quarter coming with lots of surprises from all of the megafauna and the majestic animals. With the season starting to get more interesting we speed up the science even more, with help from my very cool interns and research fellowship Beatrice Cadei. Thanks for their hardwork and excitement to keep the energy for science and conservation.

Starting on land we did Mangrove planting twice! With total 405 Mangrove babies planted on the field. Also after planting we always collected the propagules that fell from the tree and keep them on our nursery. This is help the propagule from get sweep to the open ocean and lost their substrate to grow, and keep them on the nursery also allow them to grow faster on the perfect condition. Now we have another 200 baby mangroves that hopefully ready in 3 months.

With all of these sightings is making sure that how special Bira and I’m so grateful witnessing the majestic animal with my own eyes! Can’t believe we supposed to do a coral ID exam and suddenly encounter MOLA! And also while we were doing a coral maintenance the Whale Shark!! just pass by.

As a practice to become professional diver we have Benthic survey to train our Interns to maintain perfect trim and bouyancy while carrying structure underwater. Helping us to keep monitoring the health of the coral reef ecosystem, we managed to do 16 benthic survey. While focusing on the Benthic Frame and taking picture of the substrate some megafauna casually swimming past, like Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas), Whitetip Reef Sharks (Triaenodon obesus), Spotted Eagle Rays (Aetobatus ocellatus), and Hawksbill Turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata).

21 BRUVs succesfully deployed on this quarter, more than usual because we have our research fellowship Beatrice Cadei doing her research about Whitetip Reef Shark. BRUV dive always fun and challenging with strong current and some assignments for bringing structure, in charge with the camera and even deploying DSMB for marking the place of our BRUV is a really good practice for team work. And the result we found Napoleon Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), Whitetip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus), Blacktip Reef Shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus), Bumphead Parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas), Bigeye Trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus), Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis), Goldspotted Trevally (Carangoides fulvoguttatus), Bluefin Trevally (Caranx melampygus) on the footage!.

240 coral fragments planted on the spider frames to give them extra protection. Our restoration area now has 33 coral spiders and two tables, and we’re already seeing signs of growth. Even better, reef fish are starting to use them for shelter! Right now, we’ve got 1.168 coral fragments on permanent structures and 202 in the Coral Nursery. Huge shoutout to our 11 Ocean Gardener coral diver students who made planting coral so much fun and easier!

Keeping up with weekly maintenance has been a big part of making sure these corals thrive. We’ve been clearing algae overgrowth, removing sponges (Porifera), and dealing with coral predators like Drupella snails (Drupella spp.) to give the corals their best shot at growing. Luckily, we also have some natural helpers, Rabbitfish (Siganus spp.) and Parrotfish (Scaridae family) that munch on algae and keep everything balanced. All these efforts are starting to pay off. Seeing these corals grow and knowing that marine life is returning to these areas makes every bit of hard work worth it.

Yuly Vernilianty-Research Assistant

Coral Watch
As usual, we conduct the CoralWatch at Blue Planet House Reef twice a month to keep an eye on coral bleaching. So far, over the past three months, coral bleaching has been isolated. The coral boulders and branching corals are half covered by algae; however, the plate coral and soft coral are all in good condition. We also found that one out of five plate corals has been cut in the middle, likely by a natural predator. We suspect it was attacked by a bumphead parrotfish.

Plastic Pollution
Plastic pollution remains a major problem on Earth. IOP runs a beach cleanup program and Dive Against Debris twice a month at Blue Planet Dive Resort. From April 2025 to June 2025, the total weight of trash removed during beach cleanups was 225.5 kg, and 7.73 kg was collected through Dive Against Debris. Plastic pollution is like a vicious cycle — plastic moves from land to ocean and back to land again, with some plastic getting stuck in the coral reefs. That’s why we need to continue both beach cleanups and Dive Against Debris efforts. In remote places like Tanjung Bira, there is no recycling facility for plastic waste. We hope that someday there will be a recycling center in Tanjung Bira so we can do even more to save the Earth.

Visit to School
We always use simple methods to teach kids in kindergarten and Dego-dego about English and sea creatures to help them easily understand the concepts. Almost all of the children don’t often get the chance to go to the sea. In one session, we taught them fun facts about sea creatures and showed them videos so they could see what the creatures look like in real life.

Kert Kaspar -Coordinator

My first few months in Bira have been nothing short of amazing. Getting to know the local dive sites has been an adventure in itself – here, the combination of waves, strong and sometimes unpredictable currents, and—more recently—heavy rainfall has made diving both thrilling and challenging. But with those conditions comes an incredible reward: some of the most diverse and exciting marine life I’ve ever encountered.

From frequent shark sightings to schools of big pelagic fish cruising by in the blue, each dive feels like a new discovery. There’s something humbling about drifting through these dynamic waters and realizing just how alive and wild this part of the ocean truly is.

On land, I feel lucky to be living just steps from the sea. Having a stunning beach and a vibrant house reef right down the stairs has made every surface interval and off-day just as enjoyable—though I’ll admit the climb back up can be a bit of a workout!

Whether it’s collecting data on a research dive or simply floating through the current watching the ocean unfold, I’m constantly reminded why I love this work—and how lucky I am to be doing it in a place like Bira.

I’m also incredibly excited to continue working with my new team here in Bira. Their passion, knowledge, and energy make every day in the field even more rewarding, and I’m looking forward to everything we’ll learn and accomplish together in the coming months.