Indonesia.
Home to the richest reefs on the planet.
Warm shallow seas bloom in a kaleidoscope
of shapes and colors.
Plunging island walls explode with life...
...in this underwater oasis
with the world's highest marine diversity.
Indonesia's waters contain more coral species
than anyplace else on earth.
In some football field-sized areas
we've been able to count up to 300 species of coral.
Literally five times the coral species
that you can find in the entire Caribbean.
But Indonesia's marine rainforest
is under threat from the ravages
of illegal and destructive fishing.
Without question, bomb fishing has been
the biggest scourge of Indonesia's reefs
really for the last 70 plus years.
I just feel as humans we have to take care of nature
we can't just damage it.
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The fight is on to protect the Amazon of the seas.
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An ocean wanderer arrives on an Indonesian reef to rest...
And refuel.
This hawksbill turtle will travel thousands of miles
in her lifetime
migrating between nesting beaches
and foraging grounds.
She pokes her narrow head into each crack and crevice
to fetch her favorite meal, sea sponge.
Sponges are like weeds,
they can overgrow on corals and suffocate the reef.
This hawksbill will consume more than 1,000 pounds of sponge
in just one year.
She uses her sharp bird-like beak
to prune this coral garden
and shares her leftovers with others.
Maintaining the delicate balance
of one of the most productive ecosystems on earth.
These waters are home
to six of the world's seven marine turtle species.
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And 37% of the world's tropical fish species.
No place on earth is more vibrant,
more diverse...
Than Indonesia's underwater rainforest.
There's just so much going on,
so much different form and so much different color.
It's sensory overload to dive on these reefs.
Marine biologist Dr. Mark Erdmann
works to protect the diversity of marine life in these waters.
I started getting into coral reef fish work
in about 2004
when I joined Conservation International
with my colleague Gerry Allen,
who is one of the world's most renowned
coral reef fish scientists.
I've with Gerry discovered over 100 new species,
I think it's 131 new fish species,
which is really quite spectacular
when you think about it.
I've done over 10,000 dives in this region
and I still see new things on every single dive.
The diversity just blows me away.
It's up to Mark and his team to defend what is now recognized
as the richest reef on earth.
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Many places in the world
claim to have the highest marine biodiversity.
Conservation International has proven Indonesia
to be the rightful owner of this title.
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In 2008, Mark's colleague Dr. Gerry Allen
conducted a survey in the islands of Raja Ampat,
a remote eastern corner of the Indonesian archipelago
more than 1,000 miles south of the Philippines.
He counted 374 species of reef fish in a single dive,
a world record.
That's just off the charts
in terms of the marine biodiversity,
there's no place on the planet like that.
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Coral reefs make up about 20,000 square miles
of Indonesia's underwater landscape.
An area the size of Costa Rica.
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Indonesia's reefs stretch across an expanse of ocean,
marine biologists call the Coral Triangle.
An area recognized as the centre
of the planet's marine biodiversity.
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Indonesia's 17,000 islands
stretch from Malaysia in the west
to Papua New Guinea in the east,
more than 1,000 miles south of the Philippines.
An imaginary boundary surrounds these nations
outlining the coral triangle.
The Indonesian archipelago sits right in the middle of it.
This truly is kind of the bloody beating heart
of the coral triangle right here.
Indonesia's geography,
Warm shallow seas,
and powerful currents...
create an ideal environment for coral growth.
Every coral Like this staghorn
is made up of tiny, transparent animals
called polyps, invisible to the naked eye.
Polyps have soft, delicate bodies,
similar to jellyfish.
They use the calcium and bicarbonate in seawater
to build limestone shelters
that encase their fragile bodies.
Polyps connect to one another
to create colonies in the thousands.
Slowly these tiny engineers lay down the foundation
of this coral city.
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At the reef's edge coral coats island walls
as far down as the sun can reach.
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This submerged city is solar powered.
Algae living in the polyps
convert sunlight into the oxygen and nutrients polyps need.
Over millions of years
colonies of polyps expand and join others
creating a coral reef that acts as a single organism.
Coral reefs are the largest living structures on the planet.
And the only living structures visible from space.
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Each animal claims its own bit of real estate
on Indonesia's crowded reefs.
An emperor fish tucks behind colorful coral.
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An alligator fish lies motionless
camouflaged against the seabed.
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A six-foot long moray eel peers out
from the shadows of its cave.
Tiny glassfish storm the coral
crowding between branches in search of shelter.
Larger fish occupy the base.
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In this competitive housing market
every nook and crevice is prime territory.
Because danger is never far away.
Larger predators patrol the foggy city limits
in search of easy prey.
Barracudas are built to hunt.
A thin, long body propels them through the water
at speeds up to 25 miles an hour.
They are ferocious, opportunistic eaters
willing to take on almost any fish on the reef.
But they too have predators.
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A hammerhead looms in the distance,
a powerful sight that has unfortunately
become rare in these waters.
It's quite difficult to go anywhere in Indonesia
and see large sharks anymore, they're pretty much gone,
the tiger sharks for instance are gone,
the oceanic whitetips, most of the hammerheads.
Many places it's very difficult to see them.
An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year.
Most are killed for their fins alone.
A growing demand for shark fin soup,
an Asian delicacy,
is the driving force behind illegal shark fishing.
Each year nearly 8,000 tonnes of shark fins
are shipped to restaurants worldwide,
the weight of the Eiffel Tower In fins.
For decades,
Indonesia was responsible for 15%
of the world's total shark catch.
Abraham Sianipar is a researcher working
with Conservation International
to protect Indonesia's sharks and rays.
Indonesia and shark have the long histories
in terms of fisheries.
So Indonesia in the past 35 years
has been one of the biggest shark-fishing nation
in the world.
Abam and his team use remote underwater cameras
to monitor shark populations.
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Basically, we drop a remote camera under water
with a pole with a live fish bait on it.
So hopefully we'll attract a couple of sharks species
in front of the cameras
and we can actually document those types of sharks
and see how many of them actually swimming around
those areas.
Their findings reveal that not all hope is lost
for Indonesia's sharks.
We've found a couple of new records of shark species
in Raja Ampat that haven't been documented before;
those are snaggletooth sharks and also smooth hammerheads.
Nowadays we're being seeing the population of sharks
bounce back,
after being so bad in the past 10 years.
A recent government push to protect Indonesia's waters
is a big part of the reason
shark populations are back on the rise.
In 2013,
the Indonesian government established
the first shark sanctuary in the coral triangle
and adopted a ban on shark finning
within its marine-protected areas.
Since then, the export of shark parts in Indonesia
has decreased by nearly 50%.
But there's still a lot of work to do.
The movement starts from the bottom,
from the local peoples, the dive resorts,
the tourist operators and then captured
by the local government of Raja Ampat.
Max Ammer is a resort owner
and a supporter of Conservation International's cause.
Max has been diving in Raja Ampat since 1989.
He opened the first dive resort here
with the goal of keeping these waters
as pristine as they were on his first dive.
From day one we worked on conservation
So, we just said sorry
we don't accept shark fining here,
so we took all the lines out of the water,
so they get pretty angry with us, but we didn't mind.
we just did it.
And it helped,
and slowly, slowly we saw the number increasing,
Max works with locals to patrol the area
and ensure no illegal fishermen exploit these waters.
His team uses speed boats for routine checks
around the islands.
With so little water traffic
the unfamiliar boats of illegal fishermen
are easy to spot and intercept.
The patrol boats are actually built here on this island,
by local people,
and then Conservation International,
they train local people to be rangers,
so that's very good because the local people know
all the boats.
We started protecting it a long time ago,
about 25 years ago.
We actually didn't even know if it made a big change
and then all of the sudden we saw the difference.
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Blacktip sharks are now coming back
to these waters.
The species is easy to identify
by the black tips on their fins.
A lot of people don't know but the first black tip
was discovered in Raja Ampat,
it was during a French expedition
about 150 years ago,
so the first black tip ever seen was from this area
but there spread all over the world
so they are very common in many places.
Sharks are the reef's apex predator.
Without them, the entire food chain collapses.
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Sharks are efficient hunters.
They prey on old, sick, and weak fish
maintaining the overall health of the population.
Sharks can detect one drop of blood
in one million drops of water.
And can spot small moving prey
from as far as 10 feet.
Something Max got to see first hand
as the sharks returned to Raja Ampat.
It was actually a coincidence because having a resort
we had kitchen waste,
and I'm specifically talking about fish waste
so we decided why not throw it in the sea,
the fish can eat it.
And to our surprise, dozens of dozens of sharks
showed up straight away.
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You hear the stories that sharks immediately come
when there's blood in the water.
It is unbelievable.
Within half a minute there's some sharks.
I mean I don't know where they come from.
I know the stories but it goes fast like lightning.
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Years of Conservation work are finally paying off.
So from almost not seeing a shark,
you just have sharks everywhere,
on every dive you'll see a few, so that's just pretty amazing
and that's the way the reef is supposed to be.
The reef by Max's resort now has
one of the healthiest populations of black tip sharks
in the region.
I just feel that as humans we have to take care of nature
we can't just damage it.
You have to try to be as much as possible in harmony
with nature.
Humans do have their place in the reef's food chain.
For generations
Indonesia's fishermen have lived in harmony
with the ocean
catching just enough fish to feed their village.
At least 20 million Indonesians depend on fisheries
for their livelihood.
Small fishing villages, like this one
dot the world's second-longest coastline.
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From a young age
children learn to make a living on the water.
Fishermen pass on traditional methods
and equipment to the next generation.
They set up wicker traps on the seabed
to supplement the daily catch.
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And take to the seas in wooden canoes
as they have for thousands of years.
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But foreign fishermen and Indonesians
in competition with larger vessels
have taken a different and more destructive approach,
one that ravages Indonesia's reefs.
In some parts of Indonesia
illegal fishermen drop bombs in the water
blowing corals to pieces.
A devastating site
still common in unprotected waters.
Fishing with explosives has destroyed
as much as 80% of the reef in some places.
Without question, bomb fishinghas been the biggest scourge
of Indonesia's reefs really for the last 70 plus years,
it's really been since World War II
that they've been doing this.
The technique is very simple,
it's the idea that you use an explosive
dropped in to the water to stun and kill
large numbers of fish.
But the blast kills far more fish
than those harvested.
Nearly 2/3rd sink to the bottom unclaimed.
The effect on the reef itself is even worse.
That's because coral takes time to grow.
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Like a human brain at the bottom of the ocean,
this massive coral grows taller than the average person.
But brain coral grows just 1/10th of an inch per year.
Human hair grows this much in just one week.
Branch corals like staghorn develop much quicker.
Staghorn can grow as much as eight inches per year.
It is the fastest-growing coral.
But it's still not fast enough to keep pace
with the damage done by illegal bomb fishing.
A path of destruction was left behind
on this recently bombed reef.
A reef needs 5 to 10 years to recover from a single bomb.
Repeat bombing reduces reefs to rubble fields
that takes decades to rebuild.
But the reef does have its ways of recovering.
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Parrotfish are integral to the health
and resilience of the reef.
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They use beak-like teeth to chomp on coral.
Every bite opens up a piece of real estate
for new corals to grow.
More importantly
parrotfish graze on the fast-growing algae
that coats the reef preventing coral growth
keeping the algae blooms in check.
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In just one year, each parrotfish consumes
as much as five tonnes of coral,
that is converted into sand.
A small shoal of parrotfish can fill an entire dump truck
with sand in just one month.
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The sand processed by parrotfish
eventually settles to the bottom
to create another habitat.
For the blue-spotted stingray, it's a hunting ground.
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Like a minesweeper,
the ray glides over the sand in search of crustaceans,
a favorite food.
It uses special sensors
to detect tiny electrical signals
emitted by shellfish buried in the sand.
A frenzied flutter of the wings pins down its prey.
Unlike most stingrays,
the blue-spotted ray doesn't bury itself in the sand.
Instead, it flaunts its vibrant spots,
a warning sign to predators
that it's armed with a venomous tail.
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This blue-spotted stingray is missing its stinger.
It was likely bitten off by a shark.
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This ray may have fended off the attacker this time
But has forever lost its best defense.
Its stinger will never regenerate.
This ray will need to be extra cautious to survive.
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Staying alive on the reef is hard.
Spawning, to produce the next generation
is even harder.
Protective parents like clownfish
secure their eggs on coral close to home.
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The male stands guard until they hatch.
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A nearby patch of coral suddenly erupts with life.
Vibrant fish of all shapes and sizes
swarm together
weaving in and out of crevices and cracks,
they have found another fish's spawn.
Without a parent standing guard
eggs become an easy meal for smaller predators.
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These juvenile catfish are a target for larger fish.
They hide inside the nooks and crannies of the reef
to survive the night.
As the sun goes down
tracks in the sand lead to a mother
whose ancestors have roamed the seas for 65 million years:
A green sea turtle.
She's dug a nest about three feet deep
and is ready to lay her eggs.
She lays about 100 eggs.
Over her lifetime, she'll lay several thousand.
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She buries the eggs
to keep them safe from predators.
She will spend the next hour
shoveling sand over the dugout
to ensure her nest is well masked.
Monitor lizards will target her nest
for a quick, easy meal.
But on most beaches
turtle nests face a far greater threat:
Poachers.
Turtle eggs are considered a delicacy.
Some Indonesian cultures
believe that eating eggs can increase fertility.
Others consume them
for their perceived high nutritional value.
Mark and his team at Conservation International
work with locals to protect targeted nesting beaches.
They will patrol the beach on a constant rotation
looking for any turtles coming up.
If they find a nest they'll mark it,
and they're of course also making sure
there's no poachers coming.
For the last decade we've been funding
the Papua Sea Turtle Foundation and their patrol efforts.
They have literally stopped the poaching completely.
Year on year they're seeing 15-20% increases
in the number of nesting females coming back to the beach.
This mother has done all she can for her young
and must head back into the ocean.
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After two months
she's likely somewhere deep in the Pacific...
But her young are ready to take their first steps
under the watchful eye of their guardians.
Instinct drives the hatchlings to make a break for the ocean
as fast as they can.
The young turtles are drawn to the natural light
that peers over the ocean's horizon.
It acts as a road map leading them into the water.
Other cues like crests of waves
and the natural slope of the beach
guide them to the sea.
Even if they do take a few wrong turns
along the way.
On this beach the hatchlings are protected
from their natural predators.
The only obstacle that faces these tiny turtles
is their own clumsiness.
For most hatchlings the beach is a dangerous place.
And nowhere do they face more peril than here:
Komodo Island.
Home to the world's largest lizard:
The Komodo Dragon.
The 10-foot-long dragon forages the beach
in search food.
And turtle eggs are a favorite.
When komodo dragons can't scavenge,
they hunt.
They aren't especially swift hunters
but all it takes is one bite and a bit of patience.
Toxic bacteria in the komodo's saliva
kills large prey in a matter of days.
Komodo dragons spend most afternoons
lazing on the beach.
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They're excellent swimmers
but strong currents contain their movements
to Komodo and four nearby islands.
Indonesia is bound by two mighty oceans.
The waters of the Pacific rise a foot
above the Indian ocean.
This discrepancy drives one of the most
powerful currents on earth: The Indonesian Throughflow.
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The constant flow of water brings new life.
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Currents deliver larvae and eggs.
Populating the reef
with a rich diversity of corals and fish.
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Upwellings cloud the water with plankton.
These tiny organisms and plants drift in the current
supplying food to the reef's inhabitants.
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Filter feeders of all shapes and sizes
feast on the soupy, nutrient-rich ocean water.
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Manta rays swim to the surface to feed.
These gentle giants glide through the ocean
using their wide mouths to strain plankton
from the water.
Down on the seabed
competition for leftovers is fierce.
But what these bottom dwellers lack in mobility
they make up for in ingenuity.
A tiny porcelain crab spreads the bristles of its claws
to comb through plankton that falls to the seabed.
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A sea apple cucumber extends its tentacles into the current
To collect passing plankton.
Like an arm, its left tentacle bring food
into its mouth.
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Those attached permanently to the reef
have to work harder for their food.
A sponge filters water through the walls
of its hollow body.
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It will need to pump one tonne of water
to get just one ounce of food.
These wispy tentacles
attached to the sea sponge are actually living organisms.
These are feather stars
named for their delicate tentacles
that sway in the current
like feathers billowing in a breeze.
Feather stars attach to the reef to filter feed.
They use their long tentacles to trap passing plankton.
But they can also swim if they're spooked.
Feather stars are one of the least-understood
living marine organisms.
Like a spider crawling through water
the feather star propels its arms
in co-ordinated strokes.
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Eventually, it settles on the seabed
and searches for a safer shelter.
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At the surface, the plankton feast has attracted
the biggest eater of all,
a leviathan that rises from the deep.
The whale shark.
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For the largest fish in the ocean
keeping a diet of microscopic organisms
is a full-time job.
A whale shark spends eight hours a day eating.
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It filters 1,500 gallons of water each hour
to retain three to six pounds of food
roughly the amount a human eats in a day.
To consume so much food so efficiently,
whale sharks use a technique called suction feeding.
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Like a giant vacuum cleaner it sucks huge gulps of water
into a mouth large enough to swallow a bathtub.
Its gills are like strainers:
They remove the water and keep the food.
Whale sharks share the bays of Indonesia with fishermen.
Many of the fishing nets are in bad condition
enticing these giants with a free lunch.
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An enterprising whale shark vacuums up smaller fish
that escape the net.
All this activity makes the bay
an ideal location for the Conservation International team
to tag these resident whale sharks.
The whale shark in Indonesia usually congregate
on the lift net fishermen's platform.
They used to accidentally be caught by the lift net
when the fishermen bring it up.
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A whale shark is trapped in the net.
The researchers must move fast to attach a satellite tag
to the animal.
They use bolts to mount the tag directly onto its fin.
A new strategy used by many researchers
to ensure the tags stay securely attached.
The dorsal fin of a whale shark has very few nerve endings
much like cutting a fingernail,
the procedure is painless for the animal.
This whale shark is ready to be released.
Its tag will transmit a ping each time the animal surfaces
alerting the team of its location
every 2-5 days.
Over time conservation International
will be able to assemble a much clearer pattern
of whale shark movement in the bay.
We can see that this aggregation site
is basically a nursery areas for the whale sharks
and this tagging has been showing
that indications.
So that is absolutely a revelation
towards this populations.
But we still have plenty work to do
actually confirm those theories.
For now where these ocean wanderers go
when they leave Indonesia's bay
remains a mystery.
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From the largest fish in the ocean...
to some of the smallest.
Indonesia's warm seas
teem with the world's highest variety of marine life.
The habitat diversity in Raja Ampat is just extreme.
There's so many different special microhabitats
as you move across Raja Ampat.
Every thing from current swept points,
very protected lagoons,
massive Pacific swell
and they're just rocky reefs that go down.
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Each one of those has their own suite of species
that are found there,
and so when you put that all together
in all of Raja Ampat it adds up to a massive number.
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If I could describe all marine life
and marine habitat in Indonesia it would be;
amazingly beautiful, yet threatened.
After more than 35 years
as the world's largest exporter of shark and ray parts
Indonesia's government is taking a strong stand
against shark finning and overfishing.
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We've seen really an awakening about the need for conservation
over the 15 years I've been diving here,
I've been watching the shark populations
recover and rebound which is something
which is really reason for hope I would say.
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Today the country's 100-plus protected marine zones
make up a maritime sanctuary
that covers nearly 62,000 square miles.
But there's still a lot of work to do.
62,000 square miles
represents just 5% of Indonesia's oceans.
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On this coral reef
conservationists fight a daily battle.
A battle that may determine the future
of what remains for now
The amazon of the seas.
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