Misool Eco Resort

In the Raja Ampat Archipelago of West Papua, Indonesia — considered by marine biologists to have the highest marine biodiversity of any place on earth, with over 1,500 fish species and 600 species of coral recorded in its waters — Misool Eco Resort occupies a private island above what is arguably the most extraordinary underwater landscape accessible to recreational divers on the planet. The resort’s 36 bungalows and suites are built on stilts above the turquoise shallows of the Raja Ampat lagoon, with the underwater world accessible by ladder from each room’s private deck and by boat to the dive sites that have made this archipelago a reference point for the diving community worldwide. The remote-sensing approach of flying to Sorong and then travelling by speedboat to the island adds a quality of physical commitment to the arrival that appropriately frames what follows.

Diving in Raja Ampat’s waters encompasses wall dives, current dives through channels dense with schooling fish, manta ray and wobbegong shark encounters, and the extraordinary visibility conditions — often exceeding 30 metres — that give the underwater experience a spatial grandeur to complement its biological richness. The resort’s no-take marine reserve, established in 2005 and enforced through community partnerships with the local Bajo fishing communities, has demonstrably increased fish biomass and coral cover within its boundaries, providing a living experiment in the effectiveness of marine protection. The restaurant’s menus draw on the seafood of the protected waters and the agricultural produce of the Raja Ampat islands.

Misool’s conservation programme, built around the no-take marine reserve and ongoing partnerships with the Bajo and Matbat communities of the surrounding islands, has given the resort a legitimacy in the Raja Ampat conservation landscape that its ecological mission requires and that few privately operated conservation lodges manage to achieve with the same combination of scientific credibility and community consent.