In December 2007, WCS Indonesia conducted a detailed coral reef survey of the Kayoa Islands in the Halmahera Seascape, in the heart of the Coral Triangle. The area is located 90 km south of Ternate, the capital of Maluku Utara. Importantly it has existing traditional fishing rules that local fishers follow and it is also one of few conservation areas in Halmahera dedicated to tourism. Local fishers use hand lines, traps and other simple forms of fishing gear, and have placed bans on their communities from using nets on the reefs. Fishers who live outside Kayoa Islands pose the greatest ongoing threat to the 'progressive' local rules set up by local fishers. Prohibitions on net fishing are commonly disregarded by outside fishers and threaten the fisheries management in place that has been established in the absence of formal government management. The rules adopted by the Kayoa fishers are tacit recognition that netting is capable of plundering reef fish and that community support for “progressive” fishing practices is high. Alternatives to fishing from tourism may also reduce impacts on reefs, yet our encounters with fishers demonstrated a willingness to continue fishing and adopt fisheries practices that prohibit destructive techniques and limit use of gears that are simply harvest too many fish too efficiently.