Saving Nemo

The world’s most delicate ecosystems are under threat. Andrew Shirley meets a woman determined to protect a unique marine habitat in a remote corner of Indonesia

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hatting about animated children’s feature films isn’t generally the way I kick off interviews for The Wealth Report, but just a few minutes after meeting Bali-based Natália Perry over Zoom we are already talking about Nemo, the plucky little clownfish who is swept around the world’s oceans on a series of crazy adventures.

As it turns out, the idea behind Nemo’s story is actually not that far-fetched. As Perry explains, underwater nutrient-laden super highways do indeed snake around the planet, their surging currents propelling marine life of all shapes and sizes vast distances from one side of the world to the other. When they eventually run out of steam, those passengers still hitching a ride are discharged into astonishingly species-rich oceanic oases.

As part of a journey that sounds almost as challenging as Nemo’s, Perry just happens to be the steward of one of these oases – the 315,000-hectare Widi Reserve, part of the Maluku Islands, in eastern Indonesia, that she helped to create.

“It is an extraordinarily unique spot on the planet,” she explains. “We’ve got blue whales, sperm whales, humpbacks, minkes, pilots. In fact, we’ve counted about 16 different species of whale so far, 14 species of dolphin and we’re on about 15, and counting, species of shark. We have a higher biodiversity and higher biomass of shark than anywhere else in Indonesia.”

But what makes Widi even more special, and differentiates it from other tropical paradises such as the Maldives, is what’s happening above the water. The archipelago’s 100 or so coral islands are the remnants of the rim of two extinct volcanoes shooting half a kilometre up from the ocean floor. Between them they are home to 1,650 hectares of virgin rainforest whose canopy soars as high as 70 metres.

The Widi Reserve’s many islands contain a rare mix of pristine coral reef, beaches, mangrove and rainforest

“It feels like a mix of Avatar and Jurassic Park when you get there,” says Perry. “Some of our trees are two-and-a-half metres wide and about 300 years old, which is undocumented on any other coral atoll anywhere on the planet. We have recorded 600 species so far, many of them marine – but all the naturalists who have visited agree that these forests, without a doubt, have many new species waiting to be discovered; mostly insects, but also many new subspecies of birds.”

Perry’s unusual guardianship of the Widi Reserve stems from another of the transformative initiatives that she continues to pursue. Prior to creating the Widi Reserve, Natalia worked on combating crimes against children; harrowing and challenging work that equipped her with a special kind of determination and grit that she now brings to all her projects.

While working in Indonesia she discovered the archipelago in 2014 – becoming only the second non-local in living memory to visit, according to mainland fishermen. Realising its ecological significance – and, frankly, in need of some time away from the ugly and often dangerous world she’d immersed herself in for two decades – she set out to protect it from the ever-increasing threats of illegal fishing, deforestation and mass tourism.

Creating a sustainable conservation plan that satisfied the local government’s desire to create employment and boost the local economy – simply “fencing off” the islands as some environmentalists urged wasn’t an option – hasn’t been easy, stresses Perry, a purposedriven businesswoman who says she tires of the assumption that addressing human or ecological matters is hobby philanthropy.

“It took 35,000 dedicated hours of my time, a total of 150,000 working hours from my team, more than 150 government meetings and 180odd technical experts, conservationists and government officials to achieve the suite of 32 licences and permits we now have in place.”

In 2018, after much lobbying, the Indonesian government issued a first-of-its-kind licence giving Perry’s company, Leadership Islands Indonesia, the exclusive rights to steward the

MEET MORE VISIONARIES FIGHTING TO SAVE THE NATURAL WORLD islands of the Widi Reserve. This includes permits for the development of up to 1% of the archipelago which, given that it covers 10,000 hectares reef to reef, is still enough to develop 350 keys and 75,000 hectares of the surrounding ocean.

UNTOUCHED

Most of the islands will remain untouched, but 17 have so far been identified as having the potential for decentralised, virtually selfsufficient tourism lodges. “This will have far less impact than one large development. Our plans will tread very lightly on the ecosystem and showcase cutting-edge sustainable design and engineering systems,” says Perry. Design guru Bill Bensley, who has created some of Asia’s most stylish hotels, is keen to be involved with the project.

To further minimise their impact, the lodges will be developed on areas of non-native coconut plantations established by earlier traders. “Coconut groves are disastrous to coral atolls,” Perry explains. “They dry them out, they soak up freshwater, destroy the microclimate and destabilise the land.”

But the plan goes beyond tourism. Oliver Nicoll, who specialises in sustainable development and impact investment at Balnagowan Capital, is helping Perry identify other innovative opportunities. “Ultra-luxe, offgrid hospitality has limitations, and crises such as Covid-19 serve to underline the need for complementary revenue streams above and beyond tourism,” he says.

Perry believes there is the possibility for the reserve to become a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). When I sound surprised she quickly clarifies: “Normally, SEZs are industry heavy, very polluting, very costly to the environment and to the local people for that matter. But what’s interesting is that there’s now a rise in green SEZs.

“What I would like us to do is to propose the world’s first blue SEZ: that is to say, a zone designed around the ocean’s blue circular economy,” she says. “We can do biopharma culture, we can do agriculture, and we can do sustainable fisheries: but what’s really exciting is that there are other possibilities, things like underwater data centres powered by ocean thermal energy conversion technologies, which harvest the solar energy stored at the sea’s surface by circulating water from the cold deep waters below.”

Perry has the support of various partners already, but continues to welcome new partnerships aligned with her mission to protect and preserve this marine paradise at the end of one of the ocean’s great superhighways for many generations to come.

I’d like to propose the world’s first blue Special Economic Zone