About
Our impact
Reef surveys, beach cleans and English lessons on Arborek, year after year. Here is what that work has achieved so far.
What the work adds up to
-
2,888 kg
Marine debris removed from Arborek’s shores in 2025, up from 1,351kg in 2024
-
574
Individual manta rays identified by our long term monitoring programme
-
838
Crown of thorns starfish culled so far this year, after 691 in 2025
-
15
Coral stabilisation frames on a degraded reef area on Arborek, since our nursery launched in late 2021
-
12 years
Teaching English at the village school, and counting
-
2017
Reef Check surveys running since, one of the region’s longest running reef health datasets
Along the way
- Identified a crown of thorns starfish outbreak in 2017 and alerted government and conservation partners
- Set up coral bleaching monitoring across multiple methods to track the fourth global bleaching event, contributing regional data to NOAA
- Monitoring coral spawning since 2024, with no published precedent elsewhere in Raja Ampat
- Piloting a wastewater treatment system since 2025, now rolling out to two further locations
- Hosting University of Papua thesis students, plus interns from western universities starting careers in marine research
- Giving local islanders the chance to try diving through Discover Scuba Dives, a first hand look at their own reef
Read the Science Progress Report 2025–2026
