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Saving Nemo
The world’s most delicate ecosystems are under threat. Andrew Shirley meets a woman determined to protect a unique marine habitat in a remote corner of Indonesia
C
hatting
about
animated
the steward of one of these oases – the
generally the way I kick off
Maluku Islands, in eastern Indonesia, that she
children’s feature films isn’t interviews for The Wealth Report, but just a few minutes
315,000-hectare Widi Reserve, part of the
helped to create.
“It is an extraordinarily unique spot on the
after meeting Bali-based Natália Perry over
planet,” she explains. “We’ve got blue whales,
plucky little clownfish who is swept around the
fact, we’ve counted about 16 different species
Zoom we are already talking about Nemo, the world’s oceans on a series of crazy adventures.
As it turns out, the idea behind Nemo’s story
is actually not that far-fetched. As Perry explains,
underwater nutrient-laden super highways do indeed snake around the planet, their surging
sperm whales, humpbacks, minkes, pilots. In of whale so far, 14 species of dolphin and we’re on about 15, and counting, species of shark. We have a higher biodiversity and higher biomass of shark than anywhere else in Indonesia.”
But what makes Widi even more special,
currents propelling marine life of all shapes and
and differentiates it from other tropical paradises
to the other. When they eventually run out of
above the water. The archipelago’s 100 or so
sizes vast distances from one side of the world steam, those passengers still hitching a ride are discharged into astonishingly species-rich oceanic oases.
As part of a journey that sounds almost as
challenging as Nemo’s, Perry just happens to be
such as the Maldives, is what’s happening coral islands are the remnants of the rim of two
extinct volcanoes shooting half a kilometre up from the ocean floor. Between them they are home to 1,650 hectares of virgin rainforest whose canopy soars as high as 70 metres.
Widi’s underwater paradise
