Once again All 4 Diving and Mermaid Liveaboards joined forces to support the excellent environmentally themed events organized by the Coral Triangle Center (CTC) for the 2015 Coral Triangle Day on Sunday.
The Coral Triangle center works with governments and local communities across the coral triangle region ‘the epicenter of marine biodiversity on the planet’ stretching from the Philippines in the North to Indonesia and across to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon islands. The CTC team develop training initiatives teaching the importance of well managed marine resources and marine ecosystem protection and improvement for the millions of remote indigenous peoples in the region.
The day started early with a traditional beach clean-up on the Semawang beach separating rubbish into plastic and non-organic trash with teams stretching across a 3 km area of the Sanur beaches from Semawang down to Mertasari beach, despite the beaches looking fairly clean the amount of trash collected was astonishing, mostly plastic bags and water bottles !!!!!
Next up was the CTC Mertasari mangrove regeneration project, teams from many of the leading hotels and travel companies in Bali had sponsored mangrove seedlings to be planted to help boost the natural coastal defenses that a Mangrove forest provides. The ‘buttress’ roots of the mangrove trees help to disperse the wave power and therefore stopping coastal erosion.
At the same time these habitats create their own ecosystems and offer a perfect sheltered nursery for tiny new born fish as they prepare for open ocean adventures. Sadly with Coastal development of hotels etc. in tourist areas these habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate and the resulting erosion and loose sediment has a knock-on detrimental effect for the coral reefs.
All 4 Diving Indonesia & Mermaid Liveaboards had sponsored 35 Mangrove seedlings and the team had great fun planting and tagging these trees, over the coming months we can chart their growth and in 3-6months they should be firmly established and doing their job.
The day’s events then moved to the Sanur Sunday Market located at the Mercure beach in Sanur where the CTC was hosting fun activities focusing on marine and environmental education for the kids, with workshops teaching the young eco warriors how to create art out of household trash.
It was a fantastic day out for all and a huge thanks to CTC for putting the event together.