Gili Eco Trust is a local non governmental organization created in 2000 to protect coral reefs from destructive fishing around the three Gili Islands, off Lombok, Indonesia.
The Gili Eco Trust has extended its activities to many Eco projects to regenerate coral reefs and fish abundance, weekly beach clean ups, educating in the local and international schools, organize recycling and garbage collection schemes, universities' research and studies, set up sustainable Eco tourism with green energies, give animal care and free welfare clinics and much more.
History
In 1998, SATGAS was funded by local people on the Gili islands to protect coral. 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. They entered into an agreement with fishermen to define fishing areas and lawful fishing practices. Fishermen were indeed fishing with dynamite and cyanide. This destructive method was one of the main causes of coral degradation.
The Gili Eco Trust was founded in 2000 by the dive shops on the Gili islands to financially support the SATGAS. An eco donation of 50,000IDR (€4, US$5) is encouraged from every diver to mitigate their impact to the island upon visiting.
In 2004, Delphine Robbe, part-time coordinator of Gili Eco Trust, imported the Biorock technology in Gili islands to launch a Coral Reefs Restoration Program. Since then 63 Biorock structures have been installed all around the Gili islands to regenerate their reefs.
Since 2006 the Gili Eco Trust has been organizing Biorock workshops every two years. In November 2006 took place the 4th international Biorock workshop. Two other workshops took place in November 2008 and November 2010 with always more participants from all around the world.
2009 was a turning point: the Gili Eco Trust extended its projects to land environment protection. To support all these projects, Delphine Robbe became full-time coordinator.
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. Following this, more than 80% of the Gili Islands coral reefs were deemed bleached or severely bleached as sea temperatures exceeded 32'c for more than 2 months. The Biorock's increased resilience to climate change helped more than 75% corals survive on the structures whereas natural reefs lost up to 40% of coral cover.
Now the Gili Eco Trust leads many various projects to ensure Gili islands' sustainable development and promote eco-tourism.
Projects
The Gili Eco Trust has implemented projects to protect and regenerate corals, and to preserve land environment on the Gili islands.
Coral Protection
The Gili Eco Trust cooperates with the SATGAS (and more recently the marine authorities of North Lombok BKKPN) to protect coral reefs. 20 days per month and on call, members of the SATGAS patrol to be sure that no one destructs coral and that fishermen respect the agreement on fishing areas and lawful fishing practices. The Gili Eco Trust is installing mooring buoys to avoid anchoring on coral reefs. Mooring buoys also help to mark the boundaries of fishing areas.
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.
"Coral Watch" dives are also available in every dive shop. Data collected during the dive help Project Aware scientists in their studies on coral reefs.
Coral Restoration
Coral is facing so many factors of degradation that the Gili Eco Trust decided not only to protect coral reefs but to restore them too.
A Biorock Coral Reef Restoration Program has been implemented since 2006. Biorock method consists in installing new artificial coral reefs on the ocean floor. These reefs can have two positive roles: being ideal habitats for corals, fish, shellfish, mollusks, seaweed, etc. and being efficient wave breakers which protect beaches from erosion. Now the Gili Eco Trust wants to develop a Biorock structure which would be provided with electricity by a turbine thanks to sea current. Thus, Biorock method would be more sustainable.
Today, 63 Biorock structures regenerate the Gili islands' coral reefs.