November 18, 2002

Pindito anchored at Pulau Kawe Besar (00° 02'171" S, 130° 03' 070" E)

An early start for some, as the documentary team sped off to the Sel Pele pearl-farm for a shoot, and to catch up with e-mails again (thank you Atlas Pacific/Cendana Indopearls). Whilst there the team saw the oyster hatchery tanks - more than 600 million larval oysters bubbling away in vats, feeding on an algae soup mix several times a day. The farm has 800,000 adult oysters suspended on lines in the bay at any one time, and 100 staff who manage a continual process of breeding, growing, and harvesting.

The Social-economy team had an interesting day interviewing villages at Salyo village 5 km to the north. As usual, the villages are very aware of the dangers of bombing and cyanide fishing, but are fairly powerless to prevent it. They claim that national security personnel are often on board the boats to deter any complaints from locals. Behind the village there has been logging, by a company from Sorong. The company had paid locals well - around Rp 100,000 ($100) per cubic meter - and had taken shipments of 1,200 m3 and 600m3. For unclear reasons, the company didn't collect a third shipment of 600m3, but left it with the villagers for their own use. The payment was in kind, in outboard motors. Average income for the villagers would be around Rp 500,000 - 1,500,000 per month, mainly from marine resources like sea cucumber, lobster, and trochus, and they can obtain this throughout the year. Unfortunately commodities are expensive, and there is very little control of outgoings - there are no banks. This village is part of the Kawe clan group, and claims ownership of Kawe, Sayang, and Gag islands.

The vegetation team continued to explore the ultrabasic soils of Kawe, but this time focussed on the lowland forest pockets between the high spurs. Overall diversity was lower than mainland forests, but endemism was very high. We have seen that ecological stress on plants (as on the dry limestone rocks, and the nickel-loaded ultrabasic soils) produces high levels of endemism - on Kawe we only saw 40 or so species of woody plant, but around half are very specific. For the first time in the trip, the team discovered a spring and a small stream! A new species of Psychoptria was growing here.

The divers had a great day around Kawe - discovering stunning banks and canyons of living coral on the floor of the bay, down to more than 35 meters. They saw a five-foot Queensland grouper (Epinephelus promicrops) here, great views in very clear water, and 123 species of hard coral.

Rod noted that rockfalls under cliffs were not being colonized by corals, and wondered if this could be due to poisons leaching from the ultrabasic rocks.