Preserve the beauty of Langkawi
We believe that the best way to protect our environment is to educate and inspire. We strive to create a safe and enjoyable environment for all our divers, while making sure we leave no trace on the marine life and its habitat. At Langkawi Scuba, we care!
Direct protection:
It is the responsibility of every diver to not touch any marinelife, so as not to do any damage. We don't take anything out of the ocean, everything has its place in the ecosystem and should not become a souvenir. We take nothing but pictures or memories and leave nothing but bubbles!
No matter how experienced you are, we will help all divers to have good buoyancy control and we will watch your fins.
Splash for Trash:
Every dive is a clean-up dive. We are lucky that the reefs are pretty clean here, but it goes without saying that if we see some trash on the dive we bring it to the surface with us. And if it is too big to bring on the dive, then we mark it with a marker-buoy and lift it up after the dive.
Taking out Ghostnets:
Every now and then fishingboats loose their nets, when these drift to Langkawi, they get stuck on our reefs. Not only cause these nets a threat to our safety under water (what if you get entangled) but they also are a great threat to the reef itself. When stuck on coral and being pushed by currents and waves, they can do great damage. Not even talking about all the fish that get stuck.
The staff of Langkawi Scuba goes out diving in their free time to cut these nets off the reef and take them back to land to dispose of properly.
The lead and floaters on the nets are re-used by fishermen. The nets, if not completely damaged, can be used around gardens/houses as wildlife deterrents. It is said that they stop snakes from entering the homes.
If the nets are unusable, they will be disposed with the regular garbage. Unfortunately here on Langkawi there is no recycling program (yet) that would be able to handle them.
Conducting Beach clean-ups:
Out of sight, out of mind...when plastic is thrown on the ground, it has to go somewhere, so very often, by accident or not, it end up in the waterways. The rivers bring it to the ocean, and the ocean brings it to the beaches. Cenang beach gets cleaned every day by the local government, however, all the other 99 islands are not that lucky.
When going for our surface interval on a beach, we regularly find washed up plastic. Unfortunately, on the beaches where tourists come regularly, we also find plastic that was clearly left there: piles of styrofoam cups and plates from a picnic, water-bottles and cigarettes are among the most found items.
It is disheartening to have to clean these beaches again and again, every time we go there, but we will continue.
We Reduce and Re-use:
Who doesn't like a nice hot cup of coffee/tea after a dive? And what about some snacks?
The drinking water on our boat is filtered tap water, we bring our own reusable bottles and cups in stead of increasing plastic waste and for our snacks we use reusable Tupperware boxes.
These are small things but, do them every day they add up.
Would you like to make some small changes? Bring your own shoppingbag, tupperware or coffeemug. Think about how many straws you use every day and multiply that by 365....(yes, that is a lot, isn't it!) Bring your own metal straw or just say no to straws. In Malay: Tak Nak Straw!
And that cigarette-butt, with it's toxic chemicals, please dont let it end up in the ocean, on the beach, or even on the street where it will end up in the sewage and eventually back in our environment...use a temporary ashtray until you can dispose of it properly.