Bali has more than just a fascinating culture and special places for tourists; thousands of pearls are harvested from its seas!
As soon as we saw the sign by the
side of the road reading "Atlas
south sea pearls, 600 meters", we turned right and proceeded along
a narrow, dusty road lined with homes and cattle pens. A few men were
sitting outside a house; one waved as we passed.
After another right turn, we passed behind a modest beachside hotel and entered the yard of a new-looking, long two-story building, and Bree –Atlas's marketing manager– stopped the car. There were several other buildings here of the same design. Lulu, Sri, and Santi from the Atlas office in Sanur and I all piled out of the car. Nearly four hours after leaving Sanur, in the southern end of Bali, we had finally arrived here at Penyabangan, in the north of the island. But this was just the start, because the purpose of our visit was to see the pearl farm here owned by Atlas, one of the world's largest pearl producers.
I had never imagined that here in remote North Bali there was a pearl farm whose output is exported to Europe, America and Japan. And this is not Atlas's only pearl farm; they have others in Karangasem (East Bali), in Lombok, and in Papua, near the waters of Raja Ampat. Atlas started operations in 1997, and their total production is now around 240,000 pearls per year.
The previous afternoon, I'd stopped off at the Atlas pearl jewelry showroom in Sanur, which had just received a shipment of 8,000 pearls from Penyabangan. From the staff there, I learned a bit about the different grades of pearls, and how to assess them visually based on their color and sparkle. Since I was a rank beginner at this, naturally a lot of my guesses were wrong! Still, it was satisfying to know that sophisticated equipment isn't needed to judge the value of pearls.
So now here we were at Penyabangan, with its calm beach and deep blue sea, and I asked myself: Where are the pearl fields?
Lulu and Bree were relaxing at the two-story cafÈ that also serves as a small jewelry shop. Ita, an Atlas employee at Penyabangan, invited Sri, Santi and me to see the pearl hatchery.
The two-story building near the café looked at first like a warehouse, but when Ita opened the door we saw that this is where they breed Pinctada maxima, the pearl-producing variety of oyster. This is where the process starts, by making male and female oysters breed. "All the pearl oysters that we use here come from stock we cultivate ourselves," Ita explained. "The only natural oysters here are the mother pearls for culturing, which we get from the waters off Papua." Ita explained that Pinctada maxima is the largest type of pearl oyster, and lives only in seas near Northern Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Burma.
The cultivation process begins when the oysters are around four years old. These unique creatures are hermaphroditic; they're male when they're younger, but as they mature they change into females. It's only possible to tell males and females apart during the mating season.
And the way they mate is unusual as well. A male and a female are placed side by side in a vessel containing sea water flowing under carefully controlled conditions. The male emits sperm, while the female emits egg cells. One female oyster can produce around 60 million eggs. The eggs and the sperm mix naturally in the water, leading to fertilization. Sometimes they use two males to each female. But because the process is natural, sometimes the two oysters are unwilling to mate. If, after being left together for a day, the oysters do not mate, they are returned to the sea to improve their condition.
The results of the fertilization are checked using a microscope; the fertilized eggs are then transferred to the first tanks, where they are left for 20 hours. The fertilized eggs become larvae, each only 90 microns in size. When the larvae are ready for their first feeding, they are transferred to the next tank. Here they are fed three times a day with a blend of five types of algae, which are themselves raised using special nutrition. The algae are grown in the Atlas laboratory on the upper story of the hatchery building. Seeing the alga growing laboratory and listening to Ita talk about how they calculate the number of algae reminded me of my microbiology lab courses at university.
When they are 16 days old, the larvae can crawl like snails, and they
are transferred into yet another tank. This tank is full of "collector" frames
in the form of plastic nets with cross strings. Typically only around
20 percent of the larvae ultimately become young oysters (spat) and
adhere to the collector strings. When they are 45 days old and around
2 mm in diameter, the collector full of spat is wrapped in a fine-mesh
net and transferred to the open sea for the next phase of the cultivation
process. Hundreds of collectors are put in the sea each time, and each
collector can easily contain 1,000 spat. One week after the young oysters
are placed in the sea, the breeding process is started again in the
hatchery, so as to maintain continuous production.
In the sea, the oysters will need 18 to 24 months to grow into adults around 12 cm in diameter. They are returned to the sea after the operation to insert the pearl nucleus material is performed.
Ita took us to the next building, where Mar and Lulu were waiting for us. Mar showed us how the pearl operation works.
In nature, a pearl is formed when a parasite or other organic foreign matter gets into the bodies of certain oysters. As a self-defense mechanism, the oyster coats the foreign body with nacre, or mother-of-pearl, the same calcium-based substance that forms the inner part of their shells. This coating process continues, and eventually a pearl is produced. But very few pearls are obtained directly from this natural process. Over 99 percent of the world's pearls are cultured, meaning that human intervention is used to encourage the oysters to produce pearls.
The intervention involves introducing a nucleus, the "germ" of the pearl, together with a segment of muscle fiber (saibo) from a donor oyster into the genitals of another adult oyster, which is thereby programmed to produce a pearl. In response to the presence of this foreign body, the oyster coats it with nacre, ultimately producing a pearl. Simple visual examination reveals no difference between cultured and natural pearls. However, x-ray inspection will show that a natural pearl has several layers of nacre, while a cultured pearl has only one layer of nacre, with the nucleus at the center.
Like humans, before undergoing the operation, the oysters are placed in a special container and made to fast for 24 hours. This causes the oyster's mouth to open; it is then propped open. Mar then made a tiny incision in the oyster's genitals. The nucleus, a small yellow sphere taken from a fresh-water mussel, is then introduced. Then the saibo from the donor oyster is placed against the nucleus. This saibo will then regrow inside the recipient oyster, and this is what stimulates the oyster to form a pearl. If only the nucleus is introduced, no pearl will be produced.
