From Coral Reefs to Reps - Fabien’s Gili Transformation

Fabien, co-owner of GiliFit has been on Gili Trawangan for the last decade. Born in France, but grew up in the French Caribbean and Reunion Island, it seems you can’t take the island out of a boy!

Fabien, what made you come to the Gilis in the first place?

I came to Gili for the first time in Jan 2016. I was a university student at the time and did not really know what I wanted to do work-wise, or in my life overall. I decided to take a year off between my 1st and 2nd year of a biology Master’s to gain on-field experience in conservation as well as to discover a new country and culture. I’d heard about the Gili Eco Trust’s work with coral reef restoration, via the Biorock technology, and waste management. I joined as a volunteer to help out and learn.

Unsurprisingly, I realised after 6 months that I did not want to go back home and was ready to pursue the right opportunity to make it happen.

I’ve always been a fitness enthusiast, and the fitness offer on the island was clearly lacking at the time. GiliFit was then a youth hostel with a small island gym, which was in dire need of renovations after the earthquake of 2018.

I had met in the meantime like-minded people with a matching “vision” for what GiliFit could be. We took over the place and started the renovations by the end of 2019.

What challenges do you face being a large-ish fitness centre on a smallish island?

Besides the maintenance of the fitness equipment in such a salty, humid environment, one of the biggest challenges was definitely bringing all the fitness equipment to GiliFit. Larger islands have shipping docks, whereas on Gili at the time, our equipment was transported by local boats and dropped off directly on the beach. Gili Trawangan is famous for not having any motorised vehicles, and we wanted to limit the use of horse carts, concerned about the weight of it all. We built a custom trolley, small enough to manoeuvre the paths of Gili but strong enough to carry the heaviest part of the equipment.

How did your time with an environmental project reflect what you are doing today, or how you are running your business?

Starting my life on Gili volunteering within the environmental sector gave me first-hand experience with the island’s waste problem. I spent some time helping at the dump, collecting glass bottles to later be crushed into sand and used to build eco bricks.

I had never really thought about waste management beforehand. Back home, you learn to put your rubbish in the bin, and that is it. As the saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind”. I did not really have any thought through what was happening after that. Gili T is such a small island which produces so much rubbish, especially because of all the single-use plastic. I decided then that if I were ever in a position to manage or own a business, I’d try my best to
put measures in place to limit as much as possible the amount of waste produced.

Fast forward to today, we are not selling nor using single use plastic wherever possible, we offer free water refill across the complex, our soaps are locally made and delivered plastic free, we make our own cleaning product using natural ingredients for the gym, we use home compostable packaging at Pokemu (GiliFit’s on-site restaurant) and we sort all our rubbish to facilitate recycling when possible.

We also used the eco brick where and when we could. For example, the ground floor of the GiliFit rooms and the GiliFit bar are made with them!

I know that, fundamentally, owning a business doesn’t help the environment, but if there are easy adjustments that will significantly reduce the rubbish that we create, we should take them! However, I also know alternative solutions usually cost more, so it’s hard to adopt all sustainable options for a business of any size. So, it is not about being “perfect” -we are not it is about doing anything you can where you can, even if it does not feel like much. Because, unless you care, nothing is going to get better.

You can follow GiliFit’s activities and class schedules over on their instagram @gilifit