Nusa Lembongan

Geography

Nusa Lembongan is approximately 8 square kilometres in area with a permanent population estimated at 5,000. Twelve kilometres of the Badung Strait separates Nusa Lembongan from Bali Island. The island is surrounded by coral reefs with white sand beaches and low limestone cliffs. Nusa Lembongan is separated from Nusa Ceningan by a shallow estuarine channel which is difficult to navigate at low tide. There are no permanent waterways on Nusa Lembongan. There is a suspension bridge linking Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan which takes foot and motorbike traffic only.

There are three main villages on the island. Jungut Batu and Mushroom Bay are the centres of the tourist-based industry and activities on the island whilst much of the permanent local population resides in Lembongan Village.

To the east, the Lombok Strait separates the three islands from Lombok and marks the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan realm and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The transition is known as the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who first proposed a transition zone between these two major biomes.

The northeastern side of the island is flanked by a relatively large area of mangroves totaling some 212 hectares.

Nusa Lembongan is served by regular direct speed-boat services, mostly from the east-coast Bali resort town of Sanur. Crossing time is approximately 30 minutes and services run at regular intervals during daylight hours. Larger cargo boats also run daily from the Bali port town of Padang Bai.

The island is populated by very few cars. Its main source of transportation is by scooters and foot, due to the small size of the island.

Local economy

The economy is primarily based on tourism and Nusa Lembongan is the only one of the three neighbouring islands to have significant tourism infrastructure. Nusa Lembongan is particularly well known as a world-class surfing destination, with famous surf breaks including Shipwrecks, Lacerations & Playgrounds. The island is also known for its surrounding world-class scuba diving and snorkeling on the coral reefs. There is also subsistence agriculture and fishing on the island, and a seaweed farming micro-industry until as recently as 2015 when due to tourism and pollution it became unviable. Following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lag in tourism, seaweed farms were rebuilt as locals returned to the practice in 2020-2021.

Conservation

Marine conservation is considered extremely important to sustaining future levels of tourism on the island and in February 2009, a local NGO from Nusa Lembongan, facilitated by The Nature Conservancy Coral Triangle Center, opened a community centre on Nusa Lembongan. The waters around Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida have at least 247 species of coral and 562 species of reef fish.

Other conservation initiatives include a release programme of vulnerable olive ridley turtles from Sunset Beach on the southwestern coast.

Connection to Nusa Ceningan

It is connected to Nusa Ceningan Island through a narrow suspension bridge which was opened in 2017. This replaced the older wooden bridge which collapsed during a religious procession in 2016, killing eight people.