While we are sitting at home in self-quarantine (or for some of us ‘lockdown’ – depending on your current location), Mother Nature is having a moment for herself and we can almost hear her sigh of relief. Let’s face it, humans are responsible for the majority of the world’s environmental problems and we need to be working together to minimise our footprint as much as possible.
Beach Clean Ups and Dives Against Debris
We have certainly lost track of time, but did you notice it’s April already? This means it’s not only the beginning of Spring (for most of our readers in the Northern hemisphere), but also a month of celebrations! In Thailand we’re ‘missing out’ on Songkran, our New Year’s celebrations, which are usually happening with a huge beach party here on Koh Tao. And at the same time there are also the Easter holidays, which normally involve some quality time with friends and families. Of course, these social gatherings will have to be downsized this year.
But there’s another holiday we are kind of missing this month: Earth Day! However, just because we can’t celebrate a traditional Earth Day in 2020, this doesn’t mean that this event gets completely ignored this year. Check out their website to find out what you can do to help – or simply keep reading this blog as we have some ideas for you further down in this post…
Throwback Thursday
Before we get into that, let’s play a round of ‘Throwback Thursday’ and look at back at one of the biggest Dive Against Debris events on Koh Tao in the past years which actually happened just over a year ago. In March 2019 PADI, Master Divers and many other dive schools on Koh Tao came together to organise a joint Dive Against Debris day. During this day, together we collected almost 100kg of debris from our oceans.
Of course, this wasn’t a simply a one-off event, but we did organise a lot of different clean up events in the past…
Join us for a review of our top 3 clean-up events of the past 365 days!
EARTH DAY 2019 – In this blog post, written by Master Divers Life Competition Winner Katie, you can read all about last year’s Earth Day events on Koh Tao!
WORLD CLEANUP DAY 2019 – Another joint effort was World Cleanup Day in September 2019. Together with a few other dive schools, Master Divers Instructors and Trainees helped clean up our local strip of beach in Mae Haad.
LIGHTHOUSE BEACH CLEAN UP 2020 – A huge community effort which took place earlier this year. Master Divers allocated their boat for the removal of the rubbish and our team helped getting all the full bin bags from land onto the boat.
What can we do to help?
Maybe you are the type of person that uses these quiet times to sit back and take some time to reflect on the past. Maybe you’re more the type of person who is making plans and thinking about their schedule for the second half of 2020 (diving holidays, anyone?). But if you are the type of person who needs to do something right now, we have three ideas to get you distracted for a little while!
Do a mini-clean-up – Are you still allowed to go out? Here on Koh Tao we’re lucky to be able to go for a little snorkel or hike as long as we maintain our distancing. Even if it’s just a stroll to the local shops for you – why not take a bag/net with you and collect some rubbish while you’re out and about?!
Educate yourself – While it is a bit tricky to do, let’s say, a full PADI AWARE Specialty course the moment, this shouldn’t hold you back from picking up some new – dive related – knowledge. A lot of universities are offering free courses online and one of our favourites is an online training on ‘Tropical Coastal Ecosystems’.
Virtually visit the underwater world & educate others – Are you hanging out a lot on video conference calls at the moment? PADI had the great idea to include your favourite underwater scene as a background image and we think this is also a fantastic conversation starter! Who knows, maybe your favourite colleague could be your next best dive buddy…
What are you doing at the moment to distract yourself? Share your ideas in the comments! (You’ll get bonus points if it helps the environment…)
