Chasing Ghost Barges Off the Coast of Java

The hallway of the Rainbow Warrior, a fabled Greenpeace vessel, was pitch black. I could hear the vague sound of water splashing against the hull, but that's about it. My eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness, so I was cautiously feeling my way toward the bridge, where Yogi Tujuliarto, the ship's captain, was scanning the night for barges of coal responsible for the destruction of protected coral reef off the coast of Karimunjawa, a tiny archipelago north of Semarang, Central Java.

Yogi was sipping a cup of Columbian coffee and staring at the radar navigation screen. His colleague Lestari, who was also on the late shift that night, had her feet up on the dash. We were slowly sailing through the waters of the Karimunjawa National Park, one of six marine parks in Indonesia. It's waters are full of dozens of species of coral and its forests home to endangered pangolin and Javan deer.

But, for years, coal barges have been dropping anchor off the park's coast, destroying its protected coral reefs in the process, as they sought shelter from high seas and storms. It's barges like these that brought the Rainbow Warrior out to Karimunjawa during its Indonesia tour. I joined the ship's crew three days ago back in Bali, and would spend another three days aboard as we sailed toward North Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port.

Suddenly, a high pitched voice shouting "tango bravo, tango bravo," broke the silence over the radio. "The one from the north is going left. We're coming from the south, go right."

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"Tango bravo," was code for tugboats, the towing vessels that pushed and pulled barges loaded down with coal and oil through Karimunjawa. The islands are close enough to mainland Java that ships heading from Cirebon to Banjarmasin frequently pass by. Yogi jumped to his feet and stared at the navigational system. On it, two blinking dots signified the positions of our ships. We were only five nautical miles apart, but five miles might as well be five million miles when its this dark.

The radar blips were the ships' AIS (Automatic Identification System), a global location tracking system that helps prevent mid-ocean collisions. But some ships turn off their AIS as they enter protected waters or engage in illegal activities, like dropping anchor in the middle of a vulnerable, protected coral reef.

We spent the morning near Karimunjawa as Yogi monitored five ships that passed with 10 nautical miles of our boat. But none of them raised any suspicion from the captain. The boats were instead just passing through on their way to someone else. We wondered if no one was dropping anchor because it wasn't common, or if instead word had gotten out that the Greenpeace crew was lurking around.

"Most of these ships are carrying coal to Cirebon and Jepara from Banjarmasin," Yogi told me. "But there hasn't been a suspicious activity yet."

Didit Haryo, a climate campaigners with Greenpeace Indonesia, believes that the Rainbow Warrior was just at the right place, but the wrong time. Didit has heard dozens of stories of barges dropping anchor off Karimunjawa every single month, destroying the coral reefs and severely hurting the livelihoods of local fishermen. When the anchor hits the sea floor, it crushes the coral reef, and sometimes when it's pulled back up, the anchors hook on the coral, pulling it from the seabed.

The economy of Karimunjawa hinges on two things, tourism and fishing, and both of them depend heavily on the coral reefs remaining healthy and in-tact. Tourists head to the archipelago to dive among some of the richest undersea ecosystems around, bringing in as much as Rp 3.7 billion ($265,290 USD) in 2016, according to government figures. And fishermen rely on the communities of fish and other aquatic life that lives amid the coral. A coal barge destroying the reef not only hurts the environment, it takes money out of locals' pockets.

The Rainbow Warrior spent two days in Karimunjawa and before the ship moved on, we finally saw first-hand, what the local residents were complaining about. A coal barge named Safinatur Rozzaq 09 that was being pulled by the tugboat Kahar V had dropped anchor inside the national park. The barge was carrying 2,7000 square meters of coal, but it didn't have a permit to sail through a conservation zone, let alone drop anchor.

Didit got on the radio, announcing “Kahar V, you are within a restricted area. Coal barge, you are causing environmental damage in Karimunjawa.”

The tug responded quickly, "Roger, sir. Roger, sir. Let me report this to the captain," the radio answered. The tug then pulled up anchor and began to sail off, but not before the Greenpeace crew motored over in six small boats and painted "Coral Not Coal," in large yellow letters on the side of the barge.

“These barges’ crews always use the same excuses," Didit told me. "If it's not engine failure, then it's logistic deficiencies, or bad weather. But that’s all they are: excuses. The two ships we found had no problems whatsoever.”

There should be someone patrolling the water of the national park, Didit told me. But, so far, no one has taken up the task. So instead Greenpeace was in Karimunjawa to warn Indonesia's coal companies that their actions were destroying the environment.

Karimunjawa's location has been both a blessing and a curse. The waters off the northern coast of Java are some of the most-heavily trafficked in the world. Every single day, at least 60 boats pass by Karimunjawa, according to estimates by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. It puts an otherwise remote place in the middle of domestic and international shipping routes and helped make it a place we even heard of. There are literally thousands of islands in Indonesia, the vast majority of them known only to people who happen to live nearby.

But because of its location, Karimunjawa is also a common place for boats and barges to try to wait out rough seas, especially coal barges. The coal industry has been polluting the waters of Karimunjawa for years, and, today, it's reached a point where it might threaten the islands' tourism industry. A decline in tourist arrivals could affect the livelihoods of more than 2,000 people who work in the industry.

“The damage has gotten worse since 2011,” said Abdul Rahim, an environmentalist and a tour guide. “We will chase them away ourselves since the government hasn’t really taken any clear action on it.”

Local residents already run their own coral reef transplantation program without the help of the government, he said.

“We rely on sea tourism, so if the coral reefs are damaged, what can we offer to the tourists?” Abdul asked me.

Last year, local residents reported 1,600 meters of damaged coral reef caused by five ships dropping anchor. But this destruction barely made a blip on the news after the destruction of more than ten times that occurred in Dampier Strait, Raja Ampat.

“The damage of Karimunjawa coral reefs have been reported repeatedly, but we barely got responses from the government,” said Jarhanudin, a local resident.

A few days later, the Greenpeace crew found a second barge, this one named Bloro 7, dropping anchor on the west side of Karimunjawa. That barge too was tagged and chased off. Patrols might be the best hope Karimunjawa has at remaining safe from the anchors of barges and boats. But without a concentrated effort from the park's administration, the problem is likely to continue.

“An investigation of barges damaging coral reefs has never been completed,” said Amiruddin, of the Coral Reef Network (I-CAN). “So there’s this image of neglect. To recover coral reef, it takes a long time. This damage will only get worse."

Full disclosure: Adi Renaldi, a VICE staff writer, was invited aboard the Rainbow Warrior by Greenpeace Indonesia.