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Barrier reefs. The most famous barrier reefs are the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, which is 2,000 kilometers long and 150 kilometers wide, and the large barrier reef off the coasts of New Caledonia in Melanesia. A barrier reef is a fringing reef where the back reef or boat channel has become a large lagoon. In the case of the Great Barrier Reef, this "lagoon" is in places 100 kilometers wide.

Trepang drying on a dock in Pagimana, Sulawesi

Trepang Fishing

The lowly sea cucumber, a lumbering, inoffensive detritus feeder, hardly looks like something you would want to touch, much less eat. But this homely animal is the target of small-scale fishermen all over Indonesia, and for many it serves as a major source of cash income.

Plucked from the shallow reefs of Indonesia, the sea cucumbers are dried, cleaned and sold in small lots to local businessmen, who ship them to Ujung Pandang, the center of the trade. There they are graded, and sold to the Asian market where this trepang becomes the key ingredient in a Chinese soup.