The Success of Tioman Island Clean-Up Day, 7-9 October 2011

One Of Malaysia’s Most Popular Island Destinations Are Nurtured With A Dose Of Goodness From Berjaya Hotels & Resorts.

A prosaic effort to restore the pristine beauty of Tioman Island was recently undertaken by Berjaya Hotels & Resorts, accomplished by a total of 51 divers, 70 participants including media and children from Sekolah Kebangsaan Tekek, Tioman.

The Tioman Island Clean-Up Day (TICD), which took place over a three-day period, adopted on a t

hree-pronged approach, in that it focused on a clean-up dive, a beach clean-up as well as a Learning With Nature Workshop to educate the school children on the importance of environmental conservation.

The effort netted 18 bags of discarded plastic litters, paper wastes, beverage cans and bottles, and 38 reef-destroying Crown of Thorns (COT) – a type of large starfish that preys upon corals.

Abel Nelson Nang, Corporate Director, Marketing & Communications – Berjaya Hotels & Resorts enthused, “Being part of the society, we pledge to continue the goodwill and our dedication in building a path to understand and protect our Mother Nature. TICD 2011 is a platform to prove that by gathering a group of individuals who care, we could change the current state of our ecosystem and make it better.”

Abel remarked that while the clean-up efforts were encouraging, what was especially heartening was being able to reach out to 50 school children aged 11 and 12 from Sekolah Kebangsaaan Tekek.

“It’s really only through this process of education that we are able to change their philosophy and nurture a spirit of loving the earth. Children are the next generation and are really the ambassadors for change. If we educate them and they understand, the project will sustain and endure; hence in a long run – make a difference”, added Abel.

Conducted by Dr Stephen Ronee Lau and co-facilitated by the media, the Learning With Nature programme’s main objective is to foster creativity and love for nature through fun-filled learning activities. Given modeling clay, canvas block and paints, the children were guided to visualize what they have learned during the beach clean-up activity and later to re-create that experience using their imagination by working on the clay and painting on the canvas block. 

Speaking on Berjaya Hotels & Resorts’ continual CSR activities, Abel commented, “This is not just work for us. In our small way, it’s our contribution but also a passion that we’ve picked up from our drive to respect the ecosystem in which we operate. The work is not going to be an easy or fast process, but our hope sooner or later, we will get to them.”

Endorsed by Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Project AWARE this is the second dive clean-up programme organized for Tioman in 2011, covering islands with diving sites where coral beds are abundant and a few others – identified as the most productive areas of coral reefs breeding ground including Renggis, Chebeh, Genting Bay, Cabas and Malang Rocks.

The Tioman Island Clean-Up Day 2011, is the brainchild of Berjaya Hotels & Resorts. What began a few years back as a get-together among the diving community who were interested in cleaning up the reefs and surrounding area has evolved into a CSR programme organized bi-annually, and continuously supported by PADI Project AWARE and dive centres – R&D Scuba and Scuba People.

by Kogi Vijay