Paradise Found

It’s Now Accessible By Seaplane And Calling Out To Be Explored Words.

- Juliana Chan

BUT WHERE ARE THE PTERODACTYLS? That’s pure fantasy, of course, but approaching Bawah Island for the first time can feel like coming to Michael Crichton’s fictitious Isla Nublar, and I’m not the only one in our party who has John William’s famous movie theme playing in our heads as the verdant primary forest jewels rimmed by coral reefs and turquoise waters emerge into view.

What also feeds the Jurassic Park sentiment is the fact that Bawah Island is an unspoilt, previously uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Natuna Sea. A quick search for its coordinates, 2°30’N 106°03’E, turns up a few far-flung specks from Indonesia’s Anambas archipelago that don’t even appear on some maps. And here we are, the first media from Singapore to come visit.

The owners, led by CEO Tim Hartnoll, have developed Bawah Island with a passionate commitment to preserve it as an ecological paradise, offering nature at its most luxuriant, untouched by human civilisation in living memory, if at all.

And we have been invited here, six weeks prior to opening, to be impressed by their dream, and to hopefully congratulate them for creating something truly remarkable.

LABOUR OF LOVE

Are we impressed? To city dwellers who are used to being dazzled by ultra-modern structures that vie for superlatives in terms of elevation and technology, Bawah Island might seem modestly rustic. But when you consider that humanity is veering precariously close to destroying its home planet, it is a brilliant ray of hope.