A momentous effort to restore the pristine beauty of Tioman Island was recently undertaken by Berjaya Hotels & Resorts (BHR), accomplished by a total of 100 divers and over 120 other participants including staff, media and children from Sekolah Kebangsaan Tekek, Tioman. And this year, we get a chance to participate on the CSR program where the motive is to educate people on the importance of coral reefs to the eco system.
Endorsed by Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Project AWARE, the three-day Tioman Island Clean-Up Day (TICD) had successfully organised from 20 – 23 October 2016. The resort’s annual beach and dive clean-up exercise which was inaugurated in 2010 has since developed to be so much more than just a project on the side to upkeep the beach area and coral reefs surrounding the resort. It has in fact become a full-fledged campaign which empowers people to do their part to maintain the delicate balance of the marine ecosystem via continuous conservation efforts and awareness programmes.
In the activities, 100 divers spread out in groups and they are doing a few diving session to implement several important maintenance tasks for the reef restoration site and the man-made marine breeding grounds.In this, they will be doing a few things including building the new coral reefs, restore the existing coral reefs, and to encourage new coral to settle and grow. The structures will also attract other organisms as well as a large number of fish. This designated 6-acre conservation site is located right in front of Renggis Island facing Berjaya Tioman Resort, just a 2 minute boat-ride away.
Aside, this activities is actually not just collecting and disposing the nasty crown-of thorns,but they planted those lovely corals there. Divers collecting corals to plant it on the coral table in order to encourage them to grow and making this to their new home.
In addition to undertaking this initiative, TICD’s emphasis included bringing the local community together to learn about marine conservation.
And for this year they come out with the theme of “seahorse” where the school children as well as us will learn “10 facts about Seahorse”.
Together with the organisation, the team also implement an awareness programme for 30 local school children to educate them about the importance of carols and seahorses in the marine ecosystem through interactive and fun-filled learning activities where they build seahorses using the unwanted bottles.
A note, with this remember do what we can to protect those corals where we don’t dump rubbish to the sea and kill them nor taking anything there. Appreciate those corals and see them and captured them to our memories. Else, they will be no more for our younger generation to appreciate them except seeing them in youtubes, or books.
(Youtube Video credit to Tian Chad)
With this, we hope that people will appreciate the sea not just Pulau Tioman but other islands in the world.