Derawan Islands is a group of islands located in the Makassar Strait and into the administration area Maratua District, Berau, East Kalimantan.
In addition to its coral and fish diversity, the Derawan chain contains Indonesia’s largest nesting site for endangered green sea turtles, which emerge from the sea every night to lay their eggs on the white sand beaches of Sangalaki and Derawan Islands.
In the surrounding waters there is marine park and is renowned as a tourist submarine for diving spot with a depth of about five meters. There are a wide variety of marine life here, such as squid (cuttlefish), lobster, ghostpipe fish, octopus (octopus bluering), nudibranchs, sea horses, ribbon Eels and scorpion fishes.On a coral rock at ten meters depth, there is coral rock known as “Trigger Blue Wall” because of the reef with a length of 18 meters there is a lot of trigger fish (red-toothed trigger fishes).
Beside, in Derawan Islands there are several small islands and coastal ecosystems which are
very important such as the coral reefs, sea grass beds and mangrove forests. In addition, many protected species in the Islands of Derawan like green turtles, hawksbill turtles, whales, dolphins, clams, coconut crabs, mermaids, barracuda fish and some other species.
The Islands in Derawan archipelago is about 31 island, which is some of them are bar (gusung) and atoll. Atoll is a coral island surrounding by a lagoon partially or completely. The used of the lands by local inhabitant in these island is only limited for the home living. In addition, the land of the island in the Derawan archipelago still in the form of mangrove forests, thickets, limestone forest in Maratua and coconut vegetation.
The coral reefs in this Derawan archipelago wide spread throughout the island and bar or gusung in Derawan Islands. The shoal in these islands including Gusung Pulau Panjang, Gusung Masimbung, Gusung Buliulin, Gusung Pinaka, Gusung Tababinga and Gusung Muaras.
The types of coral reefs in Derawan Islands consist of reef edge, barrier reefs and atolls. These atolls have been formed into an island and being a lake of salty water and it has 460 to 470 numbers of species indicates that this is a wealth biodiversity, giving it the world’s second highest level of hard coral diversity after the Raja Ampat Islands in eastern Indonesia.
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