Campaign:
DIVING WITH LOVE
We love diving in Raja Ampat, as do guests who travel and dive with Soul Scuba Divers. But what is our environmental impact on Raja Ampat?
We recognise that diving tourism is part of the global pressure humanity puts on our planet, causing climate change and creating ocean conditions hostile to the survival of coral reefs.
But it’s too late to just walk away: we broke it and now we own that. So, how can our love for scuba, for coral reefs and for marine creatures be harnessed for good?
Many dive centres describe themselves as ‘green’ or claim to offer ‘eco-tourism’. Sometimes that seems more like a marketing gesture rather than a genuine solution.
We don’t have all the answers, yet, but we are determined to be part of the solution. In the meantime, let’s show Raja Ampat the same love that it offers us.
Diving Centre Environmental Impact Assessment
Let’s talk about all the good things/ And the bad things that may be – Salt’N’Pepa
To go beyond greenwashing, we need to take a hard look at ourselves and take steps with real impact. So Soul Initiatives is designing a new dive industry environmental impact assessment to acknowledge and measure our true impact.
Small steps like using reef-safe sunscreen, avoiding mask soap, and not touching corals are all important, but we also need to be honest about how our industry works and the bigger systems that we are part of. Our impacts include the flights our guests take, how we use and maintain our boats, how we generate electricity, sewage flowing onto the reefs around islands, how and where we dive, and much more. We can balance these negative impacts with positive steps such as going solar, recycling plastic and improving wastewater treatment, training divers thoroughly, offsetting flight emissions and working with local communities. But we need to know the scale of the damage to understand the scale of the solutions required and to prioritise our actions.
LIVEABOARD Environmental Impact
Soul Initiatives has joined a project to monitor the movement of liveaboards within the Raja Ampat Marine Protected Area (MPA). We’re adding an antenna to help track liveaboards that anchor near Kri and Mansuar. We suspect that liveaboard boats dump a lot of their trash at sea and discharge raw sewage and other waste water directly into the waterways of Raja Ampat. At the very least, liveaboards are supposed to exit the MPA before dumping waste. By tracking liveaboard movements we are hoping to demonstrate whether these boats are doing that, or if they are staying inside the MPA for so long that they must be dumping illegally. Huge thanks to Jack from Raja Ampat Eco Lodge for inviting us into this project!
RESPONSIBLE DIVING AND QUALITY TRAINING
Soul Sea Initiatives Ltd
28 Shields St, Melbourne, Australia
[email protected]
ABN
Soul Scuba Divers
Kri, Yenbuba, Indonesia
[email protected]
Coming Soon