Questions about choosing a Raja Ampat liveaboard

[billt4sf]

Including individual with visionary and dedication to marine conservation such as Andrew Miners, the founder of Misool Eco Resort, as shown in the following documentary video of how Andrew & his team built the resort from a shark finning camp site and worked with the local community & authorities to make the area becoming no take zone, expanded & continue to enforce it by employing the local leaders to become rangers, patrolling the area, inspecting suspicious boats cruising the area, continuing to educate the local school children, etc.

Your money would be well spent & support the local community for protecting the world richest reefs.

+1 This is a place that really *IS* saving the world. That part of it, anyway.

- Bill

 

[outofofficebrb]

+1

I’ve never heard anyone say anything about a bad trash problem etc on Bunaken. Almost went but went to Lembeh instead last year. Now i know!

 

[Wingy]

Bunaken trash problem mostly on the froggies/bastianos side has been an issue for the last decade I know of. Most ops try their best to do Beach cleanups but I can only imagine it now.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I haven't been to the beach there. There are now floating garbage patches and once in the water column, not only were we swimming with the fishes but also plastic bags, chip wrappers and I don't know what all. It was worse this year than last. Perhaps it's the time of year that I go to the area, I dunno.

Yes, I expected a bit of garbage at Lembeh and that's what you get, just a bit here and there. I may be wrong, but believe some effort is being made there.

Where this mess is coming from at Bunaken, I don't know but they really should try to do something about it. Have some scooping parties, I dunno?

 

[Wingy]

Where does the trash come from? Good question - everywhere...

Manado Harbour and the open drain/canals around the town funnel all the village rubbish downstream ..l guess there's your domestic waste that appears like a disaster scene some mornings particularly in the monsoon seasons.

Caveat - haven't been there for a couple of years, if major drainage works have taken place then I'm wrong.

The real answer is ...everywhere. Next time you're on a LOB Chilli ask to go onland for a while if you're moored near a 'uninhabited' speck of land. I like to get shoes. I've yet to go onshore and within minutes not been able to find enough shoes to get myself a pair and all other divers...sure they might not match but it's a sad bit of fun.

Gam is totally full of shoes, paint cans, toothbrushes (I don't collect and gift them though) bags bottles tubs just sooo much trash. That's our reality of a "pristine untouched wilderness". Currents around the world are sadly very good at transporting trash all over the world, from all points of origin.

So where does it come from? Us.

 

[Dan]

3rd world people still think that the sea is their dumpster. I went out for a hike to see birds of paradise one morning with some people from Jakarta. They carry bottle water & some snacks and ate & drink along the way. As they finished the drink & snacks, they tossed the empty bottles & snack wraps along the way. I politely said to them to not littler the trail & take the trash with them back to the resort. I got a puzzle response with “huh” sound coming out of their mouths (I was speaking in bahasa Indonesia). It’s a mindset that we need to help them change.

 

[Wingy]

I think it's more a 'everybody needs to change' not an us and them, although I do totally agree with you re cultural mindset. What really really irks me is seeing the tourist from "first world countries" on holiday not clearly able to see a rubbish bin within 5 paces so feels it's fine to drop that plastic water cup. Why not the locals do.

Walking on a beach a few weeks ago I was not surprised to spot totally unopened water bottles given out free everywhere still with the water inside.

 

[Dan]

It’s time for the plastic bottle producer to stop making the disposable water bottles and go back to recycleable glass bottles like the old Coca-Cola glass bottles. Same with plastic grocery bags.

I remember the old days of getting to go food from food peddlers. They used old newspapers & banana leafs as the plate & wrapper. They used bamboo scewer to button the wrapper together as a package. Totally biodegradable container.

 

[Dogbowl]

There’s talk here about banning all single use plastics by 2020. A&W Canada has decided to replace plastic straws with paper straws. Vancouver will ban plastic straws by end of next year. My firm has replaced all cutlery (for employee use) with wooden ones. Plastic grocery bags were not offered (for free) several years ago. The food courts in the financial district has moved away from styrofoam containers to paper ones. It’s slow but I think we’re moving forward in the right direction.

 

[Damselfish]

While I was in Indonesia I read the book "Indonesia, Etc." (Really interesting read - author born in US, lives in UK, spent years in Indonesia.) The trash problem was discussed and it seems there is for the most part no concept that throwing trash all over is a bad thing (if it goes in the ocean and disappears, that's great.) Let alone any concept of recycling. There was a bit where the author was keeping stuff like candy wrappers in her pocket, asked where to find a trash can, and was laughed at. I think I saw something about one city, maybe Surabaya, being a little more progressive on this front but that was it. The first world doing better is great and needed, but not going to solve things in the third world places that have nothing in the education or culture to change or even consider it an issue.

Teaching kids differently might help. Even before they grow up - kids can be good at guilting parents into certain things. (A guide in Belize once told us how well this worked for eliminating standing water as part of their mosquito control program - let the kids nag their parents not to leave those water filled tires laying around the yard.) But of course the infrastructure needs to be there to support it as well, and infrastructure is something they don't seem strong at. They can't even deliver clean water in Jakarta.