Every year Dive In To Earth Day just gets bigger and better as Project AWARE supporters get involved in activities in their area from underwater clean ups to fish counts. Here's a taste of just some of the activities that dive centres in the Asia Pacific organised to celebrate their marine environment:
Thirty-six professional divers from fourteen dive centres on the island of Koh Samui organised a clean up at Sail Rock, one of the frequently visited dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand. The main focus of the day was to remove fishing nets covering coral and other marine life. Koh Samui Easy Divers also conducted another underwater clean up dive at the dive site of Koh Wao. Twenty-five divers managed to remove about 160kg of debris.
Divemasters from Dive Adventure in Koh Chang decided to clean up the fishing village of Ban Boa. They made posters, got people involved and made everyone aware of how people can make a difference.
Solomon Watersport along with Babanga Kindy organised a beach clean up on Babanga Island. The kids from Babanga village gladly collected rubbish from their beach front and were assisted by volunteers from RAMSI and WWF. Solomon Watersport and Babanga Kindy has now formed a youth club with kids from the village called Kids AWARE. It meets once a month to learn more about how to improve the reefs and beaches around their island.
Deep Blue Scuba's Dive In activities involved a discover scuba dive session for their local secondary school followed by a beach clean up. As part of the Dive In To Earth Day celebrations, SeaHounds Scuba successfully ran a coastal clean up at Kranji mangroves. Thirty-four people cleared a total of 220kg of trash in under ninety minutes!
SeaHounds were also busy in Tioman where they organised reef checks, fish counts, a mangrove appreciation walk and an underwater clean up.
Members of the Cape Dive Diving Club joined together for a dive at the Coral Bombie in Eagle Bay, Western Australia. This site has been chosen as a Community Marine Monitoring Program and for the last seven months Dive Club members have done bi-monthly dives, counting fish species and numbers as well as keeping records of the health of the coral.
The dive centres of Matava, Waisalima Beach Resort and Alberts Sunrise Resort all pulled together to clean their local area. The team managed to collect eight sacks full of rubbish.
Tropical Island Divers gained some support from USAID-funded Sustainable Coastal Tourism in Asia (SCOTIA) Philippines Project for their clam cleaning and coral planting.
Go Deep Scuba, Wanganui organised a whole week of AWARE kids activities--the kids aged between nine and sixteen successfully completed all five AWARE Kids missions.
Congratulations to all those who took part in Dive In To Earth Day, organized by The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) and the Project AWARE Foundation.