On Monday evening, the 6th July, Shannon Conway dropped me at Perth Airport for my journey to the Operation Wallacea field station in SE Sulawesi, Indonesia. Operation Wallacea (www.opwall.com) is a non profit initiative that has set up marine research and volunteer expeditions to some of the remote biodiversity hotspots (both marine and terrestrial).I arrived in Bali (via Singapore Airport) in the afternoon and had a walk around the busting Kuta beach, the next morning I was back at the airport for a flight to Makassar, in Sulawesi. Later that afternoon, after a nice walk through a national park, I caught another short flight to Kendari, SE Sulawesi, from there we were picked up and transferred to our accommodation, this is where the OPWALL expedition officially starts and we met many other students going to the same place. The next morning we all boarded a fast ferry, then an overnight ‘slave boat’ that transported us throughout the night to another island. We then boarded another boat that would take us the last 3 hr trip before arriving on Hoga Island on Friday afternoon.

Hoga is a small island located near Kaledupa in the Wakatobi Marine National Park. At an area of 1.39 million hectares, Wakatobi is the second largest marine protected area in Indonesia. Over 90000 people live within the national park and they all rely on seafood for their protein needs. Like for the majority of Indonesia, fish stocks are dwindling and reducing fishing pressure is needed if to provide a steady supply of fish into the future. A collapsed fishery would have significant consequences for the health of the growing local population. Over the years OPWALL has been working to help the locals obtain income without placing greater pressure on the already over exploited fish stocks. For example, one of the growing industries there is Agar farming (from growing and drying seaweed), this valued resource fetches a high market price and can be sustainable industry for the locals.

I was at the field station to help Jade Berman, the 2003 European scholar, and New Zealand scholarship coordinator; She is currently performing her PhD at Victoria University, Wellington, NZ. Her research focuses on the temporal variation in sponge assemblages and was to be here for two weeks and needed a research assistant so I was more than happy to visit this part of the world and help with her research. We organised for me to arrive a week earlier to learn more about the area and the research that happens at the field site. I was to do the coral reef ecology course for the week, however after a few days I got talking to some of the scientists and we decided my time would be better spent helping with the monitoring team.

A typical day at Hoga, is eat, dive, eat, dive, eat. We went diving twice a day and had a few nice night dives during the 3 weeks. As well as paying volunteers that come for the experience, many of the people there are students from the UK doing their marine biology degree, many of them use this time to do their dissertation, a research project that is an important part of their degree. They team up with the science staff, many of which are doing their PhDs, thus allow the scientists to stay on the island for up to 10 weeks while they do their own fieldwork.

One of Jade’s friends from New Zealand, Abi Powell, was doing the monitoring of the fish diversity and abundance at the many dive sites around Hoga. This is done every year to provide the Indonesian government with data on the health of the marine park. This is a particular interest of mine and together we brushed up on our tropical reef fish identifications and I was soon ready to do my own surveys. So for the next week I would do some reef fish surveys along a 50 m transect, counting between 40-70 species and about 4-500 individuals each transect. On the other dives I would spend my time photographing and identifying the many fish species, these photos will be used for a fish identification field guide for the marine research station. Most other dives were spent with Jade at her study site photographing her permanent sponge quadrats while she counted and identified the sponges. It was quite enjoyable and it was cool when we had lionfish or sea krates swimming into the quadrat. So during the 36 dives I did I was kept very busy, however I did get out with the video camera and gathered some footage. So during my time on the island I put together a video for OPWALL showcasing the field station, the research and the amazing marine life around Hoga Island, the staff and volunteers were really happy with it, and they will use it for future publicity.

During my time there I made quite a few friends and some good future contacts. It was sad to leave the place, although the return trip was made enjoyable with the company of Jade, we travelled back on the same boats and did some walking around the city of Kendari in Sulawesi, this was particularly fun as many of the locals, especially the kids were excited to see ‘Westerners’, we felt like celebrities, with locals wanting photographs with us and lots of people wanting to say hello. But then we were soon in back in Bali and walking the streets of Kuta as just regular tourists again. Anyway it was great to see this part of the world with a population 20 times that of Australia, I gained some insights into the lives of these friendly people and I am sure I will be back to this part of the world before too long. Thanks to Jade and the OPWALL staff, scientists and volunteers that made my stay extra welcome.