The Superwomen Restoring the Reef
Meet the Indonesian dive teams rebuilding coral by hand, before it’s too late.
They are working before the next bleaching wave hits. Every morning, a group of young women descend below the surface, carrying baskets of coral fragments. No fanfare. No hashtags. Just quiet, skilled work. They are not filming it for followers.
Their mission? Restore Indonesia’s coral reefs. Some of the most biodiverse, and most threatened, in the world.
The ocean is warming. Bleaching events are becoming relentless.
In 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its first-ever global coral bleaching alert. It was a warning to the world… we are almost out of time.
In the Coral Triangle, it is not billion-dollar tech or multinational NGOs leading the response. It is a group of Indonesian ‘Superwomen’ with cable ties, dive slates, and zero time to waste.
“The title of Superwomen isn’t just a label. These extraordinary individuals are true multitaskers and hard workers, from crafting reef structures with bent steel to organising beach clean-ups and inspiring local children about conservation. They recognise that with knowledge and tools, the next generation can make impactful choices to sustain our oceans.” - Coral Catch Website
The Diver at the Centre
One of them is Avicenna Wijayanto, known as Cenna. At just 24, she leads restoration dives, trains scholarship cohorts, and mentors the next generation of Indonesian marine leaders.
She’s spoken in the past about how some men told her she wasn’t strong enough to dive or work in conservation. Coral Catch, she says, proves otherwise.
Cenna rebuilds reefs by hand, underwater, with women who’ve been told this is not their domain. She leads from the seabed up, not for headlines, but habitats.
Her first encounter with coral came during a tourist snorkelling trip. A guide encouraged her to hold a coral for a photo, then mentioned that to her some people are against doing that. The contradiction stuck with her. If it was harmful, why was it encouraged? That early confusion led to clarity - the ocean was being misused. It needed defenders.
She’s previously said she once believed she wasn’t capable of doing this work, that diving and marine science were for stronger people. Now, she leads others into the water.
Cenna isn’t working alone. She’s part of Coral Catch, a hands-on reef restoration programme based on Gili Air, one of the many Indonesian islands at the front line of climate disruption.
It’s woman-led. Locally rooted. Globally aligned.
Coral Catch’s goals are not vague ambitions, they are deliverables.
They’re deploying 1,000 artificial reef structures.
They’re building the region’s first underwater science lab.
They’re training every dive shop on Gili Air to brief tourists on reef-safe practices.
They’re mentoring young women and embedding marine science into schools.
Running conservation projects requires more than passion - it demands versatility. With limited resources, you become the welder, the accountant, and the storyteller all at once. That's why we train our Superwomen to master multiple skills - because real change-makers can do it all.
- Rose Huizenga - Founder of Coral Catch
Coral Catch’s work is grounded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and their strategy connects ecosystem repair to gender equity. When local women are trained in marine science and trusted to lead, they do more than restore reefs.
They reshape futures.
The Collapse No One Can Ignore
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, known collectively as the Coral Triangle, support 76% of all known coral species. It is a nursery for marine life, a shield for coastlines, and a source of food and income for millions.
Coral reefs are under siege from all sides. Overfishing, anchor damage, pollution, sediment runoff, and unsustainable tourism. Yet of all these pressures, one threat stands out, coral bleaching. It is the most visible, the most widespread, and the most misunderstood.
Bleaching gets thrown around like everyone knows what it means. Most don’t. Even documentaries rarely explain it properly.
Let’s break it down, because once you see what bleaching really is, you can’t ignore it.
What Coral Bleaching Really Means
Corals are not rocks. They’re animals, and, they have a roommate, a tiny algae called zooxanthellae that lives inside them.
This algae feeds the coral by turning sunlight into energy, like a microscopic solar panel. The algae produces sugars through photosynthesis and shares them with the coral. In return, the coral gives the algae a safe place to live. That’s what makes coral so colourful, it’s the algae inside.
It’s a perfect partnership. The algae gives the coral up to 90% of the energy it needs to grow, build its skeleton, and reproduce. Without it, the coral starves.
When the ocean gets too warm, even by just one degree, this partnership breaks down. The stressed coral expels the algae. It turns ghost-white. That’s what bleaching is. Not death, but a warning sign. A sign that the coral is running out of energy.
If temperatures stay high for too long, recovery doesn’t happen. The coral dies, and with it, the fish, the coastline, the people.
How Coral Catch Helps
This is where Coral Catch steps in. Not with theory. With training. With tools. With hands in the water.
They collect healthy fragments of coral and attach them to stable structures on the seafloor. The fragments are fixed in place with cable ties, carefully threaded through the coral’s base to avoid damaging tissue. These fragments grow into full-sized corals, slowly bringing the reef back to life.
It’s like replanting a forest, one tree at a time, only underwater. It is a process also known as propagation.
A New Kind of Reef Restoration
Coral Catch was founded in 2021 by Rose Huizenga. It runs a nine-week intensive scholarship for Indonesian women, combining PADI dive certification, coral gardening, reef monitoring, and mentorship.
Graduates have planted over 2,000 coral fragments, hosted education days for schoolchildren, and built underwater structures from scratch. They are known as the Coral Catch Superwomen, not as a slogan, but because they do the work of ten.
This isn’t a pilot project. It’s a prototype for the future. It is scalable. It is happening now. Where global funding fails to reach, they weld hex-domes by hand. Where policy lags, they plant corals anyway.
Why This Matters Globally
If coral reefs collapse in Indonesia, the ripple effects will not stay local. Reefs support one in four marine species. They draw down carbon, regulate water chemistry, and support coastal economies across 100 countries.
Most restoration funding still goes to tech-heavy initiatives in the wealthiest countries. Australia’s Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), for example, has received over AUD $500 million in government investment to develop high-tech restoration tools and monitoring systems.
I have written before about events like the UN Ocean Conference. These are expensive gatherings where world leaders talk about solutions. I truly believe that the solutions are out there, they do not need a summit, they need a budget.
While scientists track trends from space, the most effective reef restorers on Earth are diving with borrowed gear, navigating storm surges and mentoring others between shifts. Coral Catch runs on a shoestring budget. Its impact is as real and immediate as the reefs it helps revive.
It deserves your attention.
Who Gets to Save the Ocean?
Ocean conservation has long been cast in masculine tropes. Rugged expeditions. Sonar. State-of-the-art vessels. Leadership was something you earned with a PhD or a press release.
Think Jacques Cousteau. Think Steve Zissou, for the Wes Anderson fans out there. Exploration meant conquest. Research meant authority. The ocean was a frontier, something to map, measure and manage.
Meanwhile, women like Cenna are building something quieter. Local. Culturally grounded. Inherently powerful.
What You Can Actually Do
Share their story Talk about Cenna. Share this article. Visibility brings legitimacy. Legitimacy drives funding.
Sponsor a Superwoman
You can help fund a Coral Catch scholarship. World-class training that turns young Indonesian women into coral restorers, dive professionals and marine science leaders. If you want to change the future of ocean conservation, start by changing hers.
Final Thought
The people best equipped to save the reefs are already underwater.
They do not need permission. They need help and recognition.
We already know who can restore the reefs.
Right now they are working. Protecting.
We just haven’t funded them yet.
If this story resonated, feel free to share it with someone who needs to remember the ocean too. You can also subscribe to Ocean Rising to get weekly dispatches from the deep.
– Luke
📌 PS: If this shook you, don’t let it stop here. Repost. Restack. Remind someone that the ocean still turns, for now.
Note: I have no affiliation with Coral Catch. My knowledge of them comes from interviews, videos and publicly shared documentation. I share this story because I believe their work represents the kind of conservation that deserves far more attention than it gets.