TROUBLE ON TURTLE ISLAND

Serangan is unique amongst Clean Waves’ islands for the sheer scale of threats its ecosystem of coral reefs and mangrove forest has faced in recent years. Originally a dry, low-lying island that grew upon a 100-hectare sandbar at the entrance of Benoa Bay in southeast Bali home to two multi-faith villages, in the 1990s Serangan was subject to plans to build shopping centers, theme parks and resorts which resulting in the island being essentially obliterated by bulldozers, and 300-hectares of land from the surrounding seas ‘reclaimed’ and grafted on. The subsequent pollution of the ocean and the destruction of breeding beaches has caused the wild turtle population to decrease dramatically. 

And while those plans never came to fruition, leaving much of the island a forbidding wasteland for the past three decades — albeit one with a quiet rustic charm where traditional fishing boats from Serangan’s two villages moor upon beaches popular with Indonesian families for their calm waters protected by a 2-mile long coral reef – work, including more land reclamation and sea dredging, is now underway to develop the island as a prototype mixed-use settlement including a luxury marina, tech hub, condos, and a university campus.

PLASTIC IN THE BALI

Indonesia is the world’s second largest polluter to the oceans after China, contributing 10 percent of global marine pollution with 3.22 million metric tons annually. Bali, which received 19 million visitors in 2019, sits right in the middle of the country, a mile to the east of Java, the world’s most populated island. Due to the chronic lack of waste management on both islands, plastic waste in all forms – bags, bottles, packaging, flip flops, lighters – washes down the rivers of both islands and into the sea, clogging up rivers and mangroves, and accumulating in meter-high mounds upon beaches in the heart of the Coral Triangle, vital to ‘Island of the Gods’’ tourism-reliant economy.

PARADISE PROTECTED

Your support directly funds the protection of Serangan in two ways, working with Parley and our partners in the region, you are making it possible to intercept plastic waste on the island and upcycle some of it. One of these partners is Serangan’s Turtle Conservation Centre, run by volunteers and dependent on donations, which incubates turtle eggs collected from busy beaches and releases their hatchlings back in the wild. 

WELCOME TO THE MOVEMENT

Your sunglasses are just the beginning of the Clean Waves journey. In the months ahead, we’ll take you to Serangan Island and other locations through exclusive content and explore how your support helps us protect these fragile marine ecosystems from plastic pollution.

It's great to have you onboard.