Keep in Touch

Subscribe to stay up to date on Seacology’s events, trips, and projects.

  • Email Address
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

top-cap-white

Indonesia

Sampela Village – Wakatobi National Park

top-cap-bluetop-cap-white

Conservation and community benefit: Village-based fisheries management program in Wakatobi National Park

Date Approved: 11.2003

Ocean

This project protects ocean ecosystems, making coastal communities more economically and physically secure in the face of climate change.

Wakatobi Marine National Park is one of Indonesia’s most important marine protected areas. It covers a vast, remote area of 3.5 million acres in Sulawesi. The Bajo people, an ethnic group popularly known as “sea gypsies,” live on the islands there. Though relatively small in numbers, they have had a significant impact on coral reefs because they are intensely dependent on reef resources.

Working closely with a local village-based NGO, Yayasan Bajo Mattila, Seacology is making a grant to Sampela, a Bajo fishing village on Kaledupa Island. The grant will fund purchase of shallow-water fish aggregating devices, ice-making facilities, and other equipment. This grant is in support of a pelagic fisheries cooperative that will reduce the community’s dependence on coral reef resources.

Project Updates

November 2004

Three rompongs (fish aggregation devices, or FADs) have been installed with members of the Sampela fishing community, and it is expected that the project would fund at least eight. Construction of a small fish-holding warehouse was was close to completion. Containers for transporting the fish from Sampela to export companies located on Buton were purchased. A boat was refitted with a larger engine to facilitate the transportation of fish.

Read more
- +
top-cap-bluetop-cap-white