Located along Lombok’s south-east coast, the port of Tanjung Luar is home to the second largest seafood market in Indonesia — and a roaring trade in shark fin. What people never hear about, is that it’s also home to a beautiful fishing community and a school full of amazing children. Imagine growing up in a school surrounded by ocean with parents who rely on the ocean, but constantly living with the fear that one day, the ocean may not provide. That’s what lingers in east Lombok, in the tiny school of Fishermen Island. I stated Project Hiu in an attempt to help sharks, since then its evolved to become about community as well.

One of my biggest fears I have for this community, is knowing that shark populations are in drastic decline… Decades of overexploitation have devastated shark populations, yet much of what is known about sharks is from catch records in industrial fisheries. A recent study placed baited remote underwater video stations on 371 reefs in 58 nations to estimate the conservation status of reef sharks globally.

They witnessed almost no sharks on almost 20% of the surveyed reefs. Reef sharks were almost completely absent from reefs in several nations, and shark depletion was strongly related to socio-economic conditions such as the size and proximity of the nearest market, poor governance and the density of the human population. Indonesia is actually the worlds leading shark-catching nation, leaving many communities dependant on these sharks for survival, but what happens when there are none to catch? The fishermen I work with already say to me, “my father used to fish sharks here but now we travel further and further” so the decline has already become noticeable.

So Project Hiu aims to not only transition these fishermen in eastern Lombok into tourism, giving them a better income while saving sharks, but is also setting up the youth in this community for the future. Since Project Hiu started, tourism has been able to fund initiatives that have filtered 1,000,000 liters of water preventing plastic pollution and illness.

Facilitated 1,024 English lessons (opening a future in tourism for the kids who’s only option otherwise is to fish) and we aim to provide the school with their first bathroom. Among this small contributions such as materials, seating, fans and little things they need have not gone unappreciated. One of my first small missions here was to paint a mural in the school, but we only painted a stencil, and all the children joined in to help fill it in. Watching them paint the ocean around them was something truly memorable.

Sharks, fish and coral covered the otherwise blank concrete walls of the library. After this, a few months passed and I returned only to find that they had added to the mural on three other walls. I’m never teaching this amazing community anything, I’m merely facilitating their brilliance as they teach me. As I watch them grow, and I watch the worlds hatred for the shark fin industry grow, I worry about their food security, their hostilities from others and their in ability to move on from fishing when they are trapped below the poverty line with families to look after. All things I want to address as a shark conservationist, knowing that the future of sharks relies on the future of people as well.

Processed with VSCO with m5 preset. The rise in shark fin soup as a gourmet delicacy has me motivated to drive a wedge between the fishermen and the foreign buyers who take advantage of them. Its their children however, that inspire me the most. We want to see this movement grow, and the children benefit, I want to see youth that were raised in houses built by the oceans exploitation, thrive in houses built by the oceans protection, and investment in tourism. If the children of this school and island have taught me anything, it’s that one person can change the world, as all of them have changed mine.