The Banda Islands are located in the middle of the Banda Sea in Maluku Province, Indonesia. The islands have an interesting past having been at the centre of the colonial spice trade in the 16th century and were exchanged for Manhattan, New York between the Dutch and the British colonisers.

The islands are of volcanic origin and covered in fringing reefs that drop down into the deep Ocean up to 7km deep. This creates a rich tropical marine life that varies from deep sea, pelagic to coral reef species. The area is well known for marine megafauna and migratory animals such as pygmy blue whales, hammerhead sharks, orcas and tiger sharks. Given this, the islands are popular with tourists who enjoy both its unique historical offerings and its underwater wonders.

18 coastal communities live between the six main islands of Banda. The community’s main livelihoods are agriculture and fishing. As is usual for Indonesian coastal communities, non-selective fishing gear is often used and vulnerable marine life such as sharks, turtles and other cornerstone species for the ecosystem is regularly caught. 

There is also a problem with plastic waste that ends up in the Ocean and is dangerous to marine life due to a lack of sufficient waste management on the islands. There is also a low level of ‘waste literacy’ amongst the population that is not customarily used to plastic waste and does not necessarily understand their long-lasting and damaging nature in the environment and the importance of recycling plastic waste.

The tourism industry itself also threatens the rich reef areas that include deep mesopelagic reefs with anchor damage to the popular dive areas increasingly observed in the area.

The Banda Islands communities have agreed to prioritize the use of funds from Ocean Eye to strengthen the plastic waste program on the islands during 2024. This means the income generated from Ocean Eye will be used to top-up the fee for kg of plastic collected by community members. This ensures anyone in the community can benefit by participating in waste recycling and collection activities and the efficiency of the program is also increased. Through Ocean Eye donations, a strong incentive is created to leave endangered and vulnerable animals in the sea and focus on other less critical species for livelihoods.

The data collected through Ocean Eye for the Banda region is also important and will be used to create a scientific baseline for a future nature crediting approach that has the potential to increase community income and conservation finance for this unique area.