In an aquaculture facility on the north coast of Bali, scores of tiny black and white fish swim in stacked tanks. Nearby, larger orange and white fish peer out from plastic mesh buckets, while in shallow concrete pools, corals sway gently in an artificial current.
One of the staff working at this site, run by the LINI Foundation, is Made Partiana. Hailing from a fishing family, he also heads the fishers group, Mina Lestari, in the nearby village of Les.
He tells Dialogue Earth that his father began catching fish with other people from the village to supply the burgeoning marine aquarium trade in the 1980s.
In the beginning, fishers would jump into the sea with nets to catch ornamental fish. But this technique soon gave way to more destructive means: “cyanide, something like poison”, he says.
They sprayed potassium cyanide onto the reef; this stuns but does not kill the fish, which can then be easily scooped up and sold by divers. “We destroyed the underwater corals, the fishes and everything,” Partiana recalls.
The increasingly uninhabitable sea went quiet.
During the past two decades, Partiana and his fellow fishers have worked – with LINI’s encouragement and support – to return the coast to its former glory as a vibrant ecosystem, teeming with life.
Restoring the reefs
Cyanide use has had a devastating impact. It kills corals that build the reefs and shelter other animals, eventually leading to declining fish populations and increasing desperation among local fishers, says LINI’s founder and director, Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley. She established the organisation in 2008 to promote conservation and community development in tandem.
On Bali’s northern coast, the land rises steeply into hills. Compared to other parts of the island, there is little space to accommodate rice fields that can generate food and income. The villagers therefore rely on fishing and small gardens for subsistence farming to get by, notes Gayatri.
Partiana says fishers ceased cyanide use in the early 2000s, after they learned net-fishing techniques with the encouragement and help of another NGO. The fishers wanted a change as they witnessed the declining reef health, not to mention the cyanide fishing ban they were flouting. They abandoned cyanide entirely when sufficient nets were made available.
In the subsequent years however, the coastal ecosystem did not recover. Around 2010, LINI began to work with fishers on creating artificial structures to restore the reef, continuing a long history of such projects around the world. “After we destroyed [the marine ecosystem], we wanted to give something back to nature,” Partiana says.
Partiana’s fishers group began the reef restoration with LINI’s support in 2010. By 2022, some 1,500 of these artificial structures had been deployed in the waters adjacent to the NGO’s headquarters. The structures have taken a variety of forms, some as domes and spider-like “hexframes”, others as eye-catching animal statues. One type, named “roti buaya”, resembles Indonesia’s crocodile-shaped bread. After plunging these structures into the sea, fishers attach corals grown in the aquaculture facility using glue and cable ties, to attract fish and new corals.
This work has spread along the coast to five other sites, and over 13,600 artificial structures have now been submerged.
Once mature (deployed for at least 8-10 years) these artificial reefs can support similar species to those of nearby, natural coral reefs. This is a finding of a 2022 study into two conservation sites along the northern Balinese coast, including one at the LINI facility. It notes that artificial reefs also “generate near-immediate increases in fish abundance and biodiversity”.
Regrown reefs have brought back corals and animals such as nudibranchs (a flamboyant type of mollusc), says Ryannyka Dwi Astuti, LINI’s research and education manager. It has also improved local fishing for ornamental fish, she adds.
Fishers felt these changes directly. Partiana says that after the restoration, those in his group need only work for four hours to harvest their daily catch. Prior to the conservation, it was seven to eight hours: “We spend [a] shorter time, but we get the same quantity of fish.”
Hawksbill turtles have also taken up residence on the reef. “In the past, we really had to find them … [now] we can see them just by snorkelling around,” Partiana adds.
Ryannyka notes that in 2024, the endangered native coral Acropora suharsonoi was found on the artificial reefs for the first time – surviving the bleaching caused by record global ocean temperatures.
The artificial reefs off the coast are just one part of LINI’s efforts. On land, the fish and coral tanks represent an ambition to reshape the trade that damaged the reefs in the first place.
Critical for communities
Indonesia’s aquarium fish exports to Europe began in the 1980s, but it was in the decade after that the trade really surged, says Adriel Prayoga, a former LINI research officer.
In 2018, an estimated 2.61 million individual fish destined for marine aquariums were exported from the country. Currently, at least 20 of Indonesia’s 38 provinces have documented aquarium trade fisheries, notes Adriel: “They are a critical [source of] income for many ocean communities.”
Cyanide is still used by aquarium fishers in Indonesia despite its illegality, he says. Some also use “very dangerous” hookah diving systems, in which a compressor at the surface feeds air to a diver below via a tube.
The market for aquarium fish continues to grow. Some fish found in Indonesian waters are particularly desired, such as the endemic Banggai cardinalfish. The government has struggled to manage its conservation of the Banggai, which is prized for its intricate patterning and rarity.
Clownfish and blue tang are also highly sought after. Adriel suspects this is driven partly by the popularity of two smash-hit movies, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory.
The growing market is an opportunity. The trade may currently overexploit some fish and suffer from a disorganised supply chain, but it offers the potential for a sustainable livelihood for fishers, Adriel notes.
Boosting local livelihoods
Blue tang has proven difficult to rear in captivity, but LINI’s tanks testify to the organisation’s success with clownfish and Banggai cardinalfish.
The fishes’ custodians are mostly fisher families, especially women from the village of Les. Equipped with breeding and husbandry skills, the women feed the Banggai cardinalfish chopped mussels, shrimp or abalone, monitor their health and collect data, such as the tanks’ temperature and salinity. After a year of breeding and nurturing, the fish are sent off to be sold in the aquarium trade.
Gayatri says the work empowers the women, who ordinarily have limited job opportunities, to acquire new skills and earn additional income.
In 2023, there were 126 newborn Banggai cardinalfish at LINI. In 2024, the number reached 859. “2024 was a great success for us,” says Gayatri.
Partiana’s fishers group has also replenished the reefs with cultured clownfish. The fishers and LINI hope these efforts can alleviate the fishing stress experienced by wild fish populations.
Hopes for the future
The rejuvenated reef has brought the community a deep sense of pride, whilst also diversifying incomes. This revival has forged the realisation that the more the sea is taken care of, the more it will take care of the community, says Partiana. LINI has also trained local fishers and villagers as dive guides, because the newly healthy ecosystem is bringing tourists to the village.
Partiana decided to retire from fishing in 2021. He now generates most of his income from renting out fishing gear and leading dive tours, guiding explorers of the underwater world he helped to restore and conserve.
Between his diving business and the aquaculture work he does for LINI, Partiana is planning to work on further reef restoration. He aspires to build house-shaped artificial reef structures that would turn the area into an iconic umah bé, or “house of the fish” in Balinese.
Gayatri says that while LINI has provided the community with technical skills and infrastructure, it is the fishing community that’s driving the changes in the water: “At the end of the day, it’s their reef. It is their project.”
