THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR CORAL REEFS

Every order helps us to restore and protect the coral reefs around our island home.

Thank you so much for helping to support my small business, our island community and our oceans.

I first visited the tiny island of Gili Trawangan in 2015 and fell in love with the sandy roads, baby goats and beautiful coral reefs. It has now been my home for over 3 years, and I make all my jewellery pieces here in my studio in the centre of the island, about a five minute bike ride in any direction to the reef that surrounds us.

Coral reefs are something that I never stop dreaming about.

Here in Indonesia, and everywhere in the world, coral reefs are under so much pressure from overfishing, pollution and the climate crisis.

Before dedicating myself full time to Phylla as a jeweller, I had a background as a coral ecologist and over ten years experience in marine conservation & science communication.

I am determined to give everything I can back to this ecosystem and this planet that has inspired me in every way.

Thanks to your support, we can continue this mission together

HOW YOUR ORDER HELPS

So here is what I mean when I say your order has planted a baby coral! Now, I don’t just send $5 to some carbon capture company (still a great idea though).

I literally go out with our amazing reef restoration team - lead by the incredible Sian Williams & Delphine Robbes from Gili Eco Trust & Trawangan Dive Centre, and plant a coral for every order that comes through.

I’ve been so lucky to volunteer and in coral restoration for many many years all around Indonesia and the Great Barrier Reef. It’s something I am so passionate about & I’d love to show you how it works.

CORAL GARDENING 101

Corals are kinda like succulents or frangipanis - you can break off a branch and grow a whole new coral from a small fragment!

Generally, we go diving and search for fragments that have been broken already by boat anchors, parrot fish or storm surges. They will certainly die if they roll around in the sand, so we take the fragments to the nursery site, sometimes break them into even more pieces, and re-plant them securely so they can continue to grow.

On Gili Trawangan, we have six baby coral nursery sites on the eastern side of the island, like little garden beds.

Once the fragments have started growing well, then they can be transplanted back onto the reef or other restoration sites! We have a few different methods of reef restoration here, including hundreds of amazing steel Biorock artificial reefs and underwater sculptures.

I’ll try to share photographs and updates about our corals on the Phylla instagram.

COME VISIT US!

Interested to find out more or to see your babies in person? Literally message me and come visit! Gili Trawangan is an amazing island and I would absolutely love to show you around.

This is one of the Biorock artificial reefs — read more about them in an article I wrote for Wonderground

  • Beautiful Porites coral on the north side of our island. Diving here is just magical. I wrote some more about porties corals here when I made this piece

  • The Gili Islands are there on the horizon - this is the view from the Autore South Sea Pearl Farm in Teluk Nare, Lombok, where I source some of the pearls used in my pieces.

  • Here you can see little Paraclavarina fragments being planted onto a piece of limestone substrate, which will be taken back out to the nursery reef