Beginnings

Following the 1997-1998 economical crisis, and the considerable loss of income of most peoples in Indonesia and their costal communities. Coming with a marine aquaculture background, Vincent Chalias saw in the wild live coral collection for aquarium an opportunity to transform this industry into a farm based and give coastal community another form of income. He came up with the idea to mariculture these corals, so they didn’t need to be taken from the reef anymore. And we could also use these produced corals to replant and restore the damaged reefs.

He found in Mr Manumudhita a great partner and inspiration. Mr Manumudhita, after working many years as the director of fisheries department, he retired and became the head of the Bali Fishermen associations, defending the livelihood of fishermen all over the country. The first trial was made in Nusa Dua in 2000 as the licensing and legal aspect was overcome, we quickly installed new farms in North-west Bali, and moved away from resort rich area to less developed place such as Serangan.

Serangan was not developed, close to the international airport, and offered great protected location with very good ocean water quality. A lot of fishermen were looking for new prospect after their livelihood got destroyed by the Turtle island development project.

As the list of species farmed kept on growing, we needed more diversity in the farm environment and used more and more location to the point of having 7 farms around Bali, 1 in Banyuwangi (Java), 1 in Sepeken (Madura), and 1 in Alas (Sumbawa)

Legal aspect:

Coming from the first legal commercial farm in Indonesia, we are completely legal, we have all the licenses necessary to engage in this activity. Corals on annexe 2 of the CITES convention (Convention on international trade of endangered species), thus their collection, transport, trade are regulated.