November 03, 2002

Day three started with a 04:00 AM sailing along the coast of north Batanta, to the western tip of the island, where the ship anchored around 07:00 AM. The marine team dived on two sites here, whilst the vegetation team traveled by speedboat to the village of Wei Lebet on the south coast.

The marine team dived at Batunda, in search of spawning aggregations of fish targeted by the live reef-fish trade. These often gather in large numbers at particular sites for spawning - either on the full or new moons. Here there was no indication of such gatherings, although, with five days to go before the new moon, a gradual build up of males would be expected. There was, however, a lot of mixing in the water-column, causing nutrient rich water, which attracted large shoals of plankton eating fish. During his dives, Emre characterized the area as being dominated by Acropora, with many large table structures. Several new species were collected for identification.

At Wei Lebet, the terrestrial team split into two - one group surveyed the lowland forest behind the village, and one group climbed up the mountain ridge to gain an appreciation of the vegetation types here. This group saw that most human activity is restricted to the valley floor: there is almost no logging away from the valley, and villagers climb the mountain mainly to accompany bird-watchers. In fact, most of the villagers arrived less than 2 years ago, from the village of Yesmmmmm. Villagers claim that they used to be fisherfolk, but that bombing has reduced the fish catch and they are now becoming farmers. Behind the village there is a cacao plantation, and new fields are being cleared. This clearance, and small-scale selected logging, has increased the risk of fire. A major burn occurred only 2 weeks ago, and traveled into the primary forest. This fire is still smoldering.

The afternoon heralded the arrival by speedboat of several new members - Gerry Allan and Jemmy Souhoka for the marine team, and Agus Sumule and Ryan Donnelly of the socioeconomic and marine resources team. Once the field teams were aboard we set sail for Misool, a run of about 100 km.