This past week, Sportdiver.com and Scubadiving.com both had the story of the kindergarten we helped build in Indonesia, and the role it plays in protecting a coral paradise.

From Sportdiver.com’s “School’s in for Raja Ampat”:

The local Misool Eco Resort had already established a 90,440 no-take zone in Raja Ampat in 2005, but the marine life around the Daram Islands still suffered from harmful harvesting and fishing practices. So when the resort’s Andy Miners mentioned that the Fafanlap village desperately needed a kindergarten, Silverstein saw the opportunity to apply Seacology’s unique conservation approach to expand the no-take zone.

“We focus on win-win projects where island people receive something tangible they need such as a health clinic in exchange for establishing a marine or forest reserve,” Silverstein explained. “Indigenous islanders around the world are generally not given any incentive to protect their ecosystem. Providing [Fafanlap] with the funding for the kindergarten was thus very well received.”

It’s worth noting this is not your run-of-the-mill marine reserve. From Scubadiving.com’s Coral Kindergarten for Raja Ampat:

This region is the most biodiverse tropical marine region in the world, with more than 1,000 species of fish, hundreds of varieties of coral and nearly 1,000 types of mollusks. In an area no bigger than a football field, divers can encounter more types of coral than in the entire Caribbean.

Find more info, check out our Fafanlap project page.