Blue View Divers, Koh Phi Phi, organized and arranged 3 days of activities for International Clean up Day 2008 (19th September- 21st September) in association with SSI and Greenfins Thailand, collecting just over 645kgs of debris from our beaches and dive sites.
Friday 19th September started off at 9am, and it was back to school for all of us!!!
All 60 children and 12 staff (including the school principal, Khun Wirawat) of The Phi Phi Island Village School were assembled in the playground to look through posters explaining how long different types of debris take to break down, talk about ICC and beach clean-ups.In less than 1 hour the children collected and categorized over 78kgs of rubbish from the beach located in front of the school!!! Everyone proudly received their SSI Certificates of Participation. Congratulations guys!!!
We then headed out to Phi Phi Ley snorkeling to examine the different aspects we had just talked about: types and shapes of hard and soft coral, the importance of algae in the different colored corals, the life supported by the reefs and different types of damage.
A huge Blue View thank you to all the children for making our day sanuk maak!!!
You are all underwater superheroes!!!
Saturday 20th September:
Sunflower bar was our starting point and host for a beach clean-up along Loh Dallum Beach (Phi Phi Don), aimed at encouraging community involvement, responsibility, and raising awareness of the length of time that debris takes to break down and the detrimental effects to the environment and tourist industry in the interim.
23 volunteers arrived for the morning session, and a further 35 plus for the afternoon clean-up (each lasting just over an hour due to the heat!) An astounding 501 kgs of rubbish was collected and categorized, including more rope and netting than we could count, cigarette butts, fish traps and cages, and a boat captain’s seat.
Sunday 21st September:
Sunday morning and 2 longtail boats headed out on choppy seas with 9 divers and 1 snorkeler to Phi Phi Ley, where we focused on 3 dive sites: Viking Cave, Lohsammah Bay and Piley South.
A total of 64.6kgs of rubbish was collected, including clothing, fishing nets, line and cages, rope, beverage cans and bottles etc. We are also optimistic that the ReefWatch data from these 3 sites will prove useful to Greenfins and the PMBC in terms of monitoring the health of these reefs over time.
Blue View Divers would like to thank Aquanauts for their enthusiasm and assistance over all 3 days of activities.
PICTURES TO COME.......
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment