Ena Dive Centre is working hard to restore an area of mangroves in Sanur, Bali, Indonesia. Inside a lagoon close to where a river meets the ocean there once grew a thriving mangrove forest. But the river carried so much rubbish, most of it plastic, that the mangroves were smothered and died. Ena Dive Centre decided that this was not good, that the health of our ocean is too important to let this happen. We decided to fix this problem.

So five years ago we employed men from the nearby village and started clearing out the rubbish. It took a long time – there was so much rubbish!

Once the rubbish was removed we could plant new mangrove saplings, which were supplied through an Indonesian Government initiative. These mangroves have really grown; some of the older saplings have grown 1.5 metres in one and a half years.

Our mangrove forest is starting to look healthy again. This is good for all Bali marine life as many marine species make their homes in the mangroves, even some deep water fish live here when they are young.

But we still have a big problem with rubbish. So every morning our team of mangrove workers push their boats into the water and clear up all the rubbish that has come down over the last 24 hours.

Ena Dive Centre looks forward to watching our mangrove grow. We will continue to clear the rubbish and plant more saplings. We thank the Indonesian Government for their support, Project AWARE for a grant that helped fund our work, and all our divers who contribute a small donation so we can restore our mangroves to health.

With our mangrove restoration project we are helping to make our ocean healthy with more marine life, we provide employment for the local village and we show that one Dive Centre with the support of our divers can make a real difference.