Gili Eco Trust

Between 1997 and 1998 and because of many degradation causes corals were in such a bad shape that local people decided to react and started patrolling around the islands.

2016 saw more than 110 Biorock structures installed in areas where coral reefs were previously destroyed due to illegal anchoring, overfishing and storm damages followed by an unprecedented Il Nino event causing warmer sea temperatures and little or no rainfall in the wet season between November and March.

The Gili Eco Trust cooperates with the SATGAS (and more recently the marine authorities of North Lombok BKKPN) to protect coral reefs.

To gain further students and undergrads to learn more about coral and how to protect it, the Gili Eco Trust has developed a partnership with Mataram University, Lombok.

Students in PhD, specialized in marine biology, come to Gili Trawangan to do studies on coral and to learn about Biorock technology.

Now the Gili Eco Trust wants to develop a Biorock structure which would be provided with electricity by a turbine thanks to sea current.

These workshops are supported by PADI, Project Aware, the Global Coral Reef Alliance, Mataram University, the Lombok government and many businesses on Gili Trawangan.

Tourists can join children from the local school, volunteers from businesses, the Gili Eco Trust and the FMPL and get a free dive in exchange of their participation.

Pulling carts around the island wouldn't be a problem for their health if they could drink fresh water and rest regularly, and be treated when they need to.

There is no longer any head starting programmes on Gili Trawangan as it is more beneficial for the turtle eggs to be left untouched in the sand and to hatch naturally before immediately entering the ocean.

The Gili Eco Trust creates sturdy protection cages to guard the nests for the 30-60 days they are in the sand.

To make things and behaviors really evolve, the Gili Eco Trust raises awareness amongst local inhabitants and tourists.

Every week, Delphine Robbe, Gili Eco Trust manager, teaches the three local school's classes about ecology and English.

The electrified reef and underlying biorock processes were invented by Professor Wolf Hilbertz and Doctor Thomas J. Goreau at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Thus biorock technology relies on a very simple principle: reproduction by electrolysis of the natural reaction occurring between coral, sea water, sun and dissolve minerals.

Finally, because electrified reefs rely on electrolysis, its impact benefits all corals and ecosystems around the metal structure in a perimeter with a wingspan of about thirty meters.

These structures contributed to damaged coral reefs’ restoration, enlargement of beaches touched by erosion, repopulation of marine areas with many species of fishes and other sea organisms.