From October 31 to November 22, a team of international scientists will conduct a "rapid ecological assessment" of the marine and terrestrial habitats of the Raja Ampat Islands, considered the center of the bull's-eye of Earth's marine biodiversity. Located in the Papua Province of Indonesia, the Raja Ampat islands are at the center of world coral diversity, and are home to an incredible 1,100-plus species of marine fish.

"The Raja Ampat Islands are at the heart of the heart of marine biodiversity," said Steve McCormick, president of The Nature Conservancy.

Raja Ampat will soon become an independent administrative area, or Kabupaten. Results of the marine study and associated maps will help the local government draw up environmentally sensitive plans for development, and help the Conservancy and other conservation organizations determine how best to protect this remote tropical paradise.

Extractive industries such as logging and commercial fishing threaten to destroy the rich diversity of plant and animal life in these remote islands. The buzz of chain saws, the crash of falling trees and fishing with bombs and cyanide already are damaging the reefs local people depend on for their livelihoods.

Dr. Rodney V. Salm, director of The Nature Conservancy's Asia-Pacific Coastal Marine Program, said, "Customary ownership and resource use traditions of the area mean that some of the reefs have escaped the ravages common to many other Southeast Asian reefs. This is a really exciting opportunity to develop a conservation program with communities that have a strong personal and historical commitment to managing their resources sustainably."

Diving from the live-aboard sailing schooner, the Pindito, biologists from The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund Indonesial, USAID/NRM, the Indonesian Institute of Science, Western Australian Museum, Harvard Herbarium and the University of Papua, will study marine and terrestrial life. The scientists expect to find new species of plants and animals, particularly on some of the most isolated islands that are in effect mini-continents where new species can evolve in response to unique features of their habitat. A recent 15-day study found four previously undescribed species of stomatopod shrimp, and the highest overall stomatopod diversity in all of Indonesia.

A socio-economic team will investigate the scale of economic impacts in the area, and interview local residents about their attitudes toward their environment, land ownership and traditional regulations for managing access to natural resources.

The team of scientists includes eight experienced field biologists. Dr. Gerald Allen, an ichthyologist with the Western Australian Museum, holds the world record for numbers of fish seen in a one-hour dive - 283 species (almost 5 new species per minute).

The Raja Ampat islands are located to the west of Sorong, on the northwest tip of the island of New Guinea. The four main islands - Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati and Misool - and their thousands of satellite islands cover an area of some 23,630 square miles (61,200 sq. kilometers).

Alfred Russell Wallace visited the area in 1860, when he studied the Red Bird of Paradise, and collected large numbers of previously unknown insects, birds and mammals. It was one of the places that helped him develop the theory of evolution, in parallel with Charles Darwin.

The latest news from the survey, and its findings, can be seen on the Reefbase Web site http://www.reefbase.org/rajaampat/. This site will be updated from the field using satellite communications donated by Pasifik Satelit Nusantara.

The Web site will also show pictures taken during the survey, both underwater and on land, which can be downloaded and used freely.

For further information, please contact:

Christine Dorsey
Media Specialist
The Nature Conservancy
(703) 841-3931
cdorsey@tnc.org

The Nature Conservancy is a private, international, non-profit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 14 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 80 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. On the web at nature.org.