The Coral Eden

The story of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat Archipelago with remarkably diverse coral reefs, mangroves and lush groups of small islands brings us to a moral and ethical crossroad: We can either choose to stay on our course and deplete the last of the ocean’s resources – destroying places like this in the process – or, we can adopt more sustainable methods of harvesting the fruits of nature, that will ensure the preservation of our oceans indefinitely.

In Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua, Indonesia, an area covering 45 million acres of marine environment, researchers have documented more than 1400 species of fish and 600 species of reef-building coral, the latter equal to 75 percent of the world’s known total. All of this exists within a territory that is small enough to actually protect and preserve.

A stone’s throw from the seashore lives a 12-year-old boy with his family. As we follow the boy and his family in their everyday lives, we observe how the majority of people in Raja Ampat still live sustainably. The local communities have in their own way been preserving marine biodiversity for centuries. Their fishing techniques form the visual narrative of the human impact part of this film, both underwater and on land.