Meeting the Green Fins Indonesia Team

The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Environment in Jakarta on a particularly hot and busy day. It was decided that the best way that Reef-World can assist the Green Fins in Indonesia is to go to Manado in North Sulawesi to provide training to the members on Green Fins while recruiting more members to join the project. It was also during this time that Chloe and JJ managed to meet TERANGI, a brilliant Indonesian NGO with very similar goals to the Reef-World.

Manado

So after a small flight to N. Sulawesi back across the equator we met the local coordinator of the project, Mr Medy Ompi at Sam Ratulangi University. Green Fins was established in 2009 by the Ministry of Environment and the area of Sulawesi was chosen as the pilot site for the project. This area was chosen because of its status as a world class diving site and its importance as a fragile ecosystem. As diving brings people unnaturally close to areas of great biodiversity, it is important not to upset the ecological balance and monitor all interaction with marine wildlife.

Manado has two famous dive locations. The small island of Bunaken to the west and the ‘muck’ diving capital of the world on the east coast along the Lembeh straights. This area attracts a vast amount of divers and snorkellers each year and not all of them are overseas visitors. This area is very popular with national and local tourists who all come here to see its beautiful corals, lush seagrass beds and established mangroves.

Bunaken

After meeting Medy Ompi the suggested plan was to go to Bunaken and stay on the island to establish contact with the current members, provide them with materials and training and to carry out environmental evaluations of the dive operators to establish how well they are abiding to the code of conduct within their dive operation. It was also decided that along the way any non-members of Green Fins would also be provided with an introductory presentation and some brief training on how to be more environmentally aware in diving and if they wanted to join the project afterwards then great. As it turns out they all do!

The first day was a typical day for Bunaken during that time of year, scorching hot and with little public transport. Without a boat the best way to get to all the dive operators was to walk directly to them. We met them and either gave them a presentation right there and then if they were not busy or we arranged a time to return to come back when more of their staff were free. A big thank you to all the drinking water donations to us during that day from the members. We needed it.

We managed to meet the majority of the dive businesses on the island in one day and returned to our home stay thoroughly burnt but satisfied with the job. All of the dive businesses were very enthusiastic about the project and agreed to either be a more active member or to sign up to join. While we were in Manado we were lucky enough to be invited to a meeting with the North Sulawesi Watersports Association (NSWA) where everyone agreed that all members of the NSWA would sign up to Green Fins. What a great success and we look forward to a great collaboration in the years to come.

New Members

All of the members had great ideas how they could incorporate the Code of Conduct into their business and also how they could reach out to, not just their customers and tourists, but also the local community in order to help marine awareness in their local area. They all agreed that dive business are in a unique position to influence a large amount of people and to do so in a positive way that directly helps alleviate the pressures on the marine environment.

We left Bunaken and headed back to mainland to give our feedback to Medy Ompi who was very positive about the new members and future success of the program. We hope that Green Fins will make a difference in these early days of the project and look forward to hearing about how our new members have managed to improve all of their environmental practices.

We then returned back to Jakarta to meet with all of the Ministry of Environment at TERANGI’s office to see how they will be able to continue with the project. We conducted training so that they can now carry out environmental training and assessments of GF dive centres. It was decided that our next trip would be to go to Palau Seribu (Thousand Islands) just north of the capital Jakarta with a member of staff from TERANGI, to further train him in the assessment methodology by carrying out field experience with dive operators that are already part of an alternative livelihood programme. Watch this space to see how the training and the travel to Palau Seribu went.

Chloe and JJ would again like to thank all the staff and members of Green Fins Indonesia on all their assistance and input over the last few weeks. It has all helped the GF network grow and we look forward to hearing of all the future successes.

The Reef-World team have just joined the Malaysian In Country Team in Kuala Lumpur for training and they will be heading out to see dive operator members in the Tioman Islands and other destinations over the coming weeks...

Meeting the Green Fins Malaysia Team

Due to our environmental policy Chloe and JJ opted for the long bus journey from Phuket to KL. After meeting the Green Fins team at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment they travelled with the Green Fins Network Leader Assistant to the beautiful island of Palau Tioman. Green Fins was initiated in Malaysia in 2008 and they began recruiting dive operator members earlier this year. So this was a great opportunity to get the dive operators properly implementing the Code of Conduct into their businesses.

Tioman Island

Tioman is a diving hotspot in Malaysia with a wonderful choice of dive sites and interesting marine life for tourists to enjoy. However, the tourism here is still fairly low key and, unlike many other islands in SE Asia, has not boomed. The Department of Marine Parks Malaysia (DMPM) runs the project and has awarded Tioman with Marine Park status. Chloe and JJ worked directly with the DMPM staff on the island visiting the Green Fins members to conduct training in sustainable diving practices, Reef Watch coral monitoring and Green Fins Environmental Assessments. The diving community on the island are extremely aware of local environmental issues and are enthusiastic to develop Green Fins to become a useful tool for them to work together to tackle them.

Getting around the island

Tioman presented the Reef-World team with a challenge because the dive operators are spread all over the island and there a very few roads. Using a mixture of bicycles, motorbikes, boats and legs, they managed to reach all the Green Fins members, apart from one who wasn’t on the island. Overall they were very impressed with the quality of the environmental policies already implemented into the diving businesses and the dive staff were all very keen to listen to our advice to try and make improvements where necessary. They left the island with a sense that they really helped to begin to build a union of like minded dive operators and representatives of the Government who can now share their knowledge and resources to protect Tioman’s reefs.

Fish Feeding

No fish feeding is part the Green Fins Friendly Diving and Snorkelling Guidelines we promote to all members and tourists. The DMPM staff has made sure their website does not include fish feeding within the list of permitted activity in Malaysian marine parks. This ensures tourists receive the same clear information and supports Green Fins members in the implementation of no fish feeding policies into their businesses. Fish feeding has many detrimental impacts to marine life and has been linked to Crown of Thorn outbreaks in regions of Thailand.

Following our trip DMPM have contacted Berajaya, the flight company servicing all the Marine Parks in Malaysia, and they have agreed to include the Green Fins Friendly Diving and Snorkelling Guidelines in the pack found in the seat pockets on all of their aeroplanes. This is an excellent step toward promoting sustainable practices to a huge number of tourist visiting these islands, look out for them!

No Shark-fin

Sharks are an internationally endangered species and as part of the Green Fins training we ask the network of dive operators to use their influence to ask tourists not to support any local restaurants selling these species. The Green Fins members on Tioman pointed out that there were two restaurants on the islands selling shark. During their spare time Chloe and JJ approached both of these restaurants, introduced the project, explained the issue of selling sharks meat and that many local dive operators were boycotting the restaurant because they sell it and asked them kindly if they could remove it from the menu. They discovered that both restaurants are owned by the same man, who does not live on the island. After a few reminders from the Reef-World team, one of the two restaurants managers got the owner to agree to remove it from the menu! Chloe and JJ stood with him as he proudly scribbled it off the menu. They have told the Green Fins network and hope they will visit the restaurant and support his actions. We hope that the owner will soon realise the benefits of not selling shark and take if off the menu of the other restaurant too.

This is an example of how, with patience and a smile, the Green Fins network around SE Asia can use the Green Fins project as an international brand and the bigger voice of a union to support their campaigns and achieve a real impact.

Chloe and JJ have now moved onto Indonesia to work with the Green Fins team there and hope their time will be equally as fruitful. They would like to thank all the wonderful Green Fins members and the DMPM for their support and cooperation, and a special thanks to Ms Fariha (a Marine Park Officer and the Green Fins Network Leader Assistant) for making it all possible!