Estevao Marques was barefoot, wearing a salty soccer jersey with a worn mask and a snorkel pulled high over his forehead. There was a sharp-looking knife in one hand and a harpoon in the other. Marques encouraged me to take a picture before running to the beach while the monsoon clouds were breaking above.
The local Marques fishing area has some of the highest concentrations of reef fish species ever recorded in any marine ecosystem. However, this is not one of the most famous diving destinations in the world (although it should be). This is Atauro Island, a 25 km stretch of volcanic rock off the north coast of Timor-Leste, Southeast Asia’s youngest and least visited nation.
There is no mass tourism on Atauro, but Marques, a local fisherman and host family guest, is still faced with the challenge of tapping into over-exploited marine populations and dwindling island resources. However, Timor-Leste has a unique solution. In Atauro, communities are resurrecting traditional Timorese land management laws known as Tara Bandu and developing community-based tourism initiatives to conserve the world’s most biodiverse coral reef.
Marques and his wife Lourdes had welcomed me to their host family the day before with fried bananas and strong Timorese coffee. A welcome relief after the rainy ride on the open deck of the Laju Laju car ferry from Dili, Timor-Leste’s coastal capital. The Marqueses were confident the sun would shine the next day and arranged for me to go on a snorkeling trip the next morning.
“Timor-Leste has some of the most important marine resources in the world,” Manuel Mendes later told me enthusiastically on the phone from Dili when I was researching Atrauo’s extreme biodiversity after the trip. Mendes is the Timorese director for Conservation International, the organization that carried out the first comprehensive marine survey of Atauro in 2016.
Timor-Leste has some of the most significant marine resources in the world
Marine researchers from Conservation International concluded that Atauro was the highest average of reef fish species in the world after recording an average of 253 unique reef species at 10 dive sites during their research. A total of 642 different species were recorded. A few months later, another survey recorded 2,287 migrating whales and dolphins of a total of 11 species off the coast; There is also a population of dugongs, three species of sea turtles, and the strange saltwater crocodile that crosses the Ombai-Wetar Strait from mainland Timor.
“They found many important reef systems and many species of fish,” Mendes said humbly. “But the total number of species has increased since then. We have beautiful, resilient corals, and now a lot of it is in marine reserves.”
Since the 2016 survey, 12 marine protected areas have been established on the reef to protect the amazing biodiversity of future generations, while host family initiatives and tourism activities have successfully provided local fishermen with additional income (pre-Covid-19).
Although my host family guest was spearfishing that day, Marques had made sure I join another group of snorkelers who were already out on the reef with other fishermen. After knocking the fishing boat off the beach, I was soon on my way to one of Atauro’s marine sanctuaries, where Tara Bandu forbids fishing.
“Tara Bandu is a contract between humans, ancestors and the environment that simultaneously manages natural resources, social conflicts and spiritual relationships,” said Birgit Hermann, Country Manager of Blue Ventures, another conservation group working on Atauro. “The people of Timor-Leste have a strong animist identity and have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. And now the common law of Tara Bandu is currently experiencing a revival.”
You may also be interested in:
• • The “degenerate” city lost in the sea
• • An island with a “sea of seven colors”
• • A nation with no access to its own sea
Tara Bandu is used to enforce a ban on a specific resource. Literally, Tara Bandum means the “Hanging Law” because a Tara Banduis in force, a ceremonial symbol representing the prohibition, is hung from a wooden pole. Tara Bandu is flexible and a ban can be used on a single endangered species or used to create an entire marine reserve on the reef.
Hermann explained how the data provided by local fishermen and conservation groups like Blue Ventures is helping communities manage their underwater resources and decide which Tara Bandu to implement and where. “We’re helping put data in the hands of fishermen so they can implement their own marine conservation and fisheries management approaches, such as temporary and permanent closures on coral reefs,” she said.
Tara Bandu may be historic, but the local communities have only had the power to enforce the Hanging Laws themselves since Timor-Leste gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.
“Tara Bandu is the way our ancestors protected our nature and natural resources, but the Tara Bandu system was really adopted by Timor-Leste after independence,” said Mendes, who was a resurgence of traditional in the early years of independence Experienced conservation techniques. “During the Indonesian period there were strict laws, many officials, forest rangers, police officers and the military. The Indonesians had enough people to control the natural resources.”
Timor has suffered centuries of colonization and exploitation. The Portuguese arrived in the 16th century in search of sandalwood and spices, and when the Dutch began colonizing the western half of Timor a century later, the island was split in two by rival colonial powers. West Timor became an Indonesian province when the Dutch were expelled after World War II, but the eastern half of Timor remained a Portuguese colony until an abrupt revolution in Lisbon in 1975 led to a declaration of independence in Dili.
Timor-Leste enjoyed just nine days of freedom before the invading Indonesian military launched a devastating invasion from the west in December 1975. After years of occupation and guerrilla war, Timor-Leste would not be independent again until 2002.
“After independence, the number of forest rangers and police was limited. It was really difficult for us to control the natural resources, especially the forests and fisheries,” said Mendes, who in 2008 set up the first national park in Timor-Leste the extreme west of the country helped. “So we promoted this traditional ceremony. We wanted to give the community more power. Tara Bandu became a way to bring the community back together after the occupation and to protect natural resources.”
The current was strong when I rolled into the water. Atauro is on the southern edge of the Coral triangle, a vast marine area that includes coastal areas in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Timor Leste. The coral triangle is known as the “Amazon of the Seas”, but Atauros biodiversity is also considered to be exceptional here.
Atauro’s biodiversity results from its location between two deep water routes fed by the Indonesian flow, a warm (but strong) current that pushes water from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean, creating abundant feeding grounds for marine life along the river’s path.
The same strong currents and deep waters that bring Atauro marine life also keep fishermen like Marques close to the coast, leading to overfishing in the most accessible areas. It is in these areas that Tara Bandu set up marine sanctuaries and where I spent the rest of the morning snorkeling.
The rainy season runoff from the island had blocked visibility, but the corals still shone through the sediment. A sea turtle sluggishly fed from the reef and huge schools of tropical fish darted around the coral, filling the gaze in all directions from my mask. I hovered over micro and macro marine life, dived under the waves to take a closer look at a tiny nudibranch, or held my breath to look beneath the corals for lobsters, groupers, or other marine wonders awaiting me. In the dry season, the sea is much calmer, visibility is greater and passing whales can be seen from the beach.
Tara Bandu became a way of reuniting the community after the occupation and protecting natural resources.
When the storm clouds inevitably opened up above, it was a rough drive back to the coast. In the host family, Lourdes cooked rice while Marques gutted the fish he had caught. The Marqueses were excitedly planning extensions of the host family and new hiking routes (more rooms and more activities for more tourists) when I took the ferry back to Dili after a few days of snorkeling.
It is to be hoped that Atauros marine protected areas managed by Tara Bandu can be merged into Timor-Leste’s second national park in the near future. However, in the least-visited nation in Southeast Asia, the pandemic has shown the fragility of tourism in a place where tourists have already been relatively infrequent.
“The community-based marine tourism offers enormous potential to diversify the livelihoods on the coast without having to rely on fishing,” said Hermann. “With the borders closed, there aren’t that many tourists. But the communities on Atauro look forward to welcoming international tourists back as soon as possible – you won’t be disappointed!”
While traveling in Timor-Leste can be a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure, there is plenty to explore for the adventurous traveler. Timor-Leste’s highest mountain is 2,986 m high and can be climbed on a weekend trip from Dili. There are dark but moving stories of guerrilla warfare and student protests that need to be exposed in the capital Resistance archive and museum;; The undisturbed waters of Jaco Island in the far west of Timor-Leste are great for snorkeling. plus at least 20 languages and dialects to deal with on your journey through the young nation.
Tourism is still in its infancy here, however, and a politician I met in Dili summed up the troubles Timor-Leste faced when he told me about how the government had an offer from a Las Vegas-based company declined to build a casino resort on Atauro. “We want to keep it nice,” said Harold Moucho. “It has some of the best dive sites in the world and we don’t want another Bali.” With oil reserves drying up in the Timor Sea, lucrative resorts could become an attractive source of income for a financially troubled government.
Mendes reminded me of what’s at stake in places like Atauro: “If we lose the beauty of our underwater reefs, it’s not just about Timor,” he said. “It’s a loss to the whole world.”
– –
Join over three million BBC Travel fans by liking us Facebookor follow us further Twitter and Instagram.
If you liked this story, Sign up for the weekly newsletter with bbc.com functions called “The Essential List”. A handpicked selection of stories from the BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel delivered to your inbox every Friday.
