Gathering the local population, friends and diver colleagues around the project,[6] his "Reef Gardeners" showed the local fishermen how to catch crown-of-thorns starfish (over 75,000 crown-of-thorns removed between 1996 and 1998) and horn drupe (Drupella cornus), which also threaten the reefs; and how to repair broken corals, thus saving hundreds of years of coral growth.

[7] In 2005, with funding from AusAid,[8] they began to install statues of Buddha off the coast; this Temple garden soon became an attraction for scuba diving tourists.

[14] On top of its educational work, over the years its hatchery has allowed the release of several thousands of turtles (juveniles and adults) into the ocean.

[6] A collaboration started in 2000 between the Karang Lestari Foundation (chairman in 2012: I Gusti Agung Prana) and the Global Coral Reef Alliance, leading to the installation of about 70 underwater 'bio-rocks'[15][9] over half a kilometer.

This reef, from 5 to 30 metres deep, has an upper area about the size of half a football field that gently slopes down on each side, and three underwater peninsulas that reach out to deeper levels.