Blue View Divers Koh Phi Phi

Blue View Divers have been active in eco and environmental projects both above and below the waters of Phi Phi Island since it’s opening.

Partnerships

BVD are proud members of Greenfins Thailand, a project implemented by the PMBC (Phuket Marine Biological Center), DMCR (Department of Marine and Coastal Resources) and supported by UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme). To be accepted as a Greenfins member the dive school underwent an assessment to ensure our environmental practices (including dive briefings and dive practices), awareness and participation in coral reef restoration and monitoring, meet with the required standards.

Greenfins mission statement and aim is “To protect and conserve coral reefs by establishing and implementing environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving tourism industry.”

BVD have adopted the Greenfins ReefWatch, a simple and non-invasive method for surveying and monitoring coral reefs. This technique allows us to collect valuable information as to the reef’s health, including items such as common coral types, visual percentage cover, indicator species, damage and topography, and to track these over time.

Marine biologists and government departments use this data to help answer questions about global coral bleaching and recovery patterns, as well as the overall health and risks to Thailand’s coral reefs. Ask our staff about ReefWatch, if you would like to participate and contribute your data to the marine biologists at PMBC.

Project AWARE Foundation is the dive industry’s leading nonprofit environmental organization working in partnership with divers and water enthusiasts to conserve underwater environments through education, advocacy and action. For more information about Project AWARE conservation initiatives visit www.projectaware.org

Join Project Aware in their fight to make shark finning illegal by signing their online petition.

Both Greenfins and PADI Project Aware collect data from clean up events and reef surveys to gain a better understanding of the current state of pollution and the environment. Data submitted from the clean up event will be contributed to these organisations. If you feel like learning more please click on their individual links.

Greenfins Thailand aim to protect and conserve coral reefs by establishing and implementing environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving tourism industry. Since being founded in 2004 have been dedicated to protecting the reef's of Thailand through raising awareness and teaching Reef Watch methods for ongoing monitoring. For more information about Greenfins please visit
http://www.greenfins-thailand.org

Ongoing Projects

Bang Sim & Broken Fishing Cage Collected off a Beach

Our daily dive trips include a lunch break on one of the beautiful tropical beaches of Koh Phi Phi Ley. Unfortunately some of these beaches are littered with rubbish and debris carried in by the tides or discarded by careless tourists. Blue View Divers conduct regular beach cleanups which our customers are more than welcome to participate in. Help us Keep Phi Phi Beautiful!

At Blue View Divers we recycle plastics and cans and ensure our lunches are served in reusable containers. We thereby reduce the amount of plastic and Styrofoam being used which is a longterm goal of our dive school. BVD have been increasingly concerned with the abundance of discarded Styrofoam we frequently come across during our clean-ups, especially due to the recorded instances of harm this can cause marine life such as turtles.

Recycled materials are present throughout our dive school and our longtail boat is an economical mode of transport consuming less fuel than big boats and allowing us to reduce our carbon footprint.

2009 Projects

Artificial Reef Project, HRH King Bhumibol's Birthday 2009

Blue View Divers took part in the project hosted by the Phuket Marine Biology Center and The Adventure Club, Koh Phi Phi on December 1st and 2nd 2009. The project included transplanting coral clippings onto boulders that were collected from Loh Dalum Bay.

The boulders are remnants of the dead coral heads washed in by the tsunami to Loh Dalum Bay but have since found a new lease of life in Tonsai Bay. Volunteers and Divers worked together to transplant the fragile coral clippings onto the coral heads which were then positioned in an artificial reef just outside the main bea. Gay & Bell Prepare for their Dives

Volunteers study the Coral to be transplanted

Previous artificial reef projects have been a huge success with the concrete artificial reef situated near Viking Cave on Phi Phi Ley is now thriving with corals including anemones, gorgonian seafans and other corals which now provide a home to Scorpion fish, Lionfish, Clownfish and Batfish amongst other marine life.
On the 2nd of December work was done to the existing artificial reef in Viking Cave, cleaning and maintaining the coral nurseries where the clippings are being grown.

International Clean-up Day 2009 on Koh Phi Phi

Blue View Divers of Koh Phi Phi, Thailand coordinated a two day event for Project Aware International Clean Up Day, this September.
Working with Scuba Schools International, Green Fins, Project Aware and many of the local businesses in Koh Phi Phi, we organized both beach and underwater cleanups for the event.
Last year we organized a similar event and received a great response from people living on the island and tourists alike. We had over 100 volunteers take part in the three day cleanup and gathered nearly 700 Kilograms of rubbish both above and underwater.

One of the three rubbish collection points

The volunteers combed the beach over the period of two hours and amongst them collected 1,326 Kilograms of rubbish. This was divided into recyclable and non recyclable items and to reduce the amount of plastic, rubbish was collected into builder’s sacks kindly donated by Spider Monkey Climbing.

The amount of glass collected on Loh Dalum Beach weighed 198.5 Kilograms. The amount of Recyclable rubbish (that can be processed on Koh Phi Phi) amounted to 77.4 kilograms. The rest of the rubbish was brought off the island to a facility in Bangkok, which divided the rubbish into what could be recycled which could not be dealt with by the small recycling facility situated on Koh Phi Phi. Afterwards, Sunflower bar on Loh Dalum Beach was kind enough to provide a free barbeque for the tired volunteers.

On the 20th of September we organised a dive clean up where over 19 Volunteers came and participated in cleaning the dive sites. We co-ordinated rental of a big boat from Visa Diving and a long tail boat working side by side to bring rubbish brought up by divers to the larger boat.
Armed with gloves, mesh bags and knives and cutters divers traveled out to Viking Cave. Plunging into the water and gliding over the coral reef, divers worked together to remove netting, plastic bottles and other marine debris from the dive sites. We used a base station manned by divers from Blue View and the Tourist Police to operate the lift bags bringing rubbish to the surface for the longtail boat to collect. A snorkel team of two helped bring the items up to the longtail boat and this reduced the need for divers to ascend to the surface as bags could be emptied and sent back down to the divers, reducing the dangers of bounce diving during cleanups.

Pi Zak from the Rescue Team

Netting and plastics are devastating to the marine life in our ecosystem, it is estimated that 2 million seabirds worldwide die from ingesting plastic bags every year, one specimen found had ingested over 1000 pieces of plastic debris. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature estimates that more than 100,000 whales, turtles, seals and birds die through suffocation, entanglement and ingestion of plastic bags and other items. Plastic bags also resemble jellyfish, the turtle’s favourite food. Phi Phi is blessed with a healthy community of Hawksbill Turtles, despite them being one of the more endangered species of turtle. However, their habitat and lifestyle is being threatened by the careless disposal of rubbish.

Snorkeller with rubbish
Blue View Divers would like to thank the following sponsors for helping make this project possible:
Amico Restaurant, Aquamaster, Aquamundo, Aquanauts Scuba, Atul Keshav, Ayudhaya Bank, Barrakuda Diving, Ciao Bella,The Geoff Starr Fund, Ibiza Bar, Mama Resto, Panda Restaurant, Pearl Andaman, Phi Phi Bakery, Phi Phi Scuba Diving Center, Phi Phi Tourist Police, Scuba Schools International, Seafrog Diving, Sheryl and Tony Brown, Simon Collins, Spider Monkey Climbing, Sports Bar, Sunflower Bar, Unni’s Restaurant, Viking Divers and Visa Diving

Blue View Divers is now selling flip flop keychains to support the Return to Paradise Project, a coral transplantation project in Tonsai Bay. Each cute flip flop keychain sold is a symbol of the most ecological and easiest form of transport on Phi Phi Island… Walking!

Volunteers helping to collect over 1 ton of rubbish on the 19th

With the increase in tourism on this tropical island we are also seeing an increase in waste production and the inadequacy of the island’s systems to cope with the growth in rubbish. The island has no proper bin or recycling bin system and despite many of the locals recycling cans and plastics for cash much of the items that can be recycled are still being discarded and end up in a landfill. Despite tourists being attracted to the allure of tropical island paradise, it begs the question as to whether the impact of tourism is resulting in Paradise Lost in Phi Phi. People sunbathing on the beach got up and participated in cleaning Loh Dalum Beach in an effort that involved over 80 people. The volunteers were divided into three groups, with stations set up with water and chocolate brownies for the volunteers and weighing scales, in front of Sunflower Bar, Ciao Bella and Cabana Hotel Beach.

Khun Thai on holidays from Australia getting involved

On the 20th of September we organised a dive clean up where over 19 Volunteers came and participated in cleaning the dive sites. We co-ordinated rental of a big boat from Visa Diving and a long tail boat working side by side to bring rubbish brought up by divers to the larger boat. Armed with gloves, mesh bags and knives and cutters divers traveled out to Viking Cave. Plunging into the water and gliding over the coral reef, divers worked together to remove netting, plastic bottles and other marine debris from the dive sites. We used a base station manned by divers from Blue View and the Tourist Police to operate the lift bags bringing rubbish to the surface for the longtail boat to collect. A snorkel team of two helped bring the items up to the longtail boat and this reduced the need for divers to ascend to the surface as bags could be emptied and sent back down to the divers, reducing the dangers of bounce diving during cleanups.

Picking net off the local reefs

Discarded fishing nets and cages trap marine life and animals such as turtles or sea snakes that breathe air, when they become entangled they end up suffocating, unable to break free. Amongst the flotsam and jetsam recovered from the dives in front of the cave were numerous tires, car batteries and huge expanses of netting. On the second dive we explored the site where Pileh Wall and Lohsammah Bay meet.
This is a popular area for snorkelers coming to Koh Phi Phi, we discovered a a huge area of Staghorn Corals tangled with fishing nets, divers worked slowly and carefully in the strong current to remove the netting and ropes from the staghorns without breaking off parts of the fragile and delicate corals which when damaged take years to recuperate.

Divers were given a treat when towards the end of the cleanup two leopard sharks swam around as if curious about the divers working on the reef who stopped to watch their graceful progress.
One member of the team was designated reef watch monitor and gathered data on fish and coral populations on the reef to be submitted to Greenfins for a better understanding of the health of marine life in our local waters.
The total amount of rubbish collected from the dive cleanup was over 680 Kilograms, in total over the two days we had collected more than twice the amount gathered in last year’s project! This would not have been possible without all the support and enthusiasm from volunteers and local businesses.

Return to Paradise Live Coral Project

This August Blue View Divers Lisa Zeffertt, Khun Bell and Pee Gay took part in a cleanup hosted by the local Phi Phi Tourist Police. The cleanup took place under the recently renovated main pier in Tonsai.
About 19 divers, most of which were local Thais participated in the cleanup which involved two dives under the pier. Divers brought up an array of rubbish including discarded gas cookers, length of blue piping, wooden planks and tires, beer bottles and even entire cases of beer that were still intact that had fallen off the supply ships!

After 2 hours of hard work, most of the rubbish had been removed from under the pier and tired divers posed for photographs and surveyed the amount gathered before hauling it onto the rubbish disposal boat.

2008 Projects

International Clean-up Day 20th-21st September 2008

BVD were official Project AWARE International Clean-up Co-ordinators for a number of environmental activities we had organized for the island. This included a very successful beach clean-up of Loh Dallum Beach including over 60 volunteers and removing more than 500kgs of debris from this beach. The following day a number of volunteer divers conducted underwater clean-ups of 3 of the local dive sites and carried out the Greenfins ReefWatch on 2 sites.

• In celebration of HRH King Bhumibol’s 80th Birthday Every year on the King’s birthday most of the dive schools on the island take part in several eco projects including coral transplantation, clownfish transplantation and beach and underwater cleanups around our local sites.

Read More about our Clean Up Projects on the BVD Conservation Officer, Kim's blog. http://kimibley.blogspot.com/2007/12/phi-phi-clean-up-days.html

IYOR (International Year of the Reef)
2008 is the International Year of the Reef and on the 19th (- 20th) of September Blue View Divers organised a trip to the local school, since community involvement is central to the ethos of the company. All 60 thai children (and their teachers) learnt about the impact of marine debris and then participated in a beach clean-up, even recording data as to the types of rubbish we were collecting. A further 9 of the students were involved in a lesson specifically about coral and the reasons we need to protect our reefs. Following this lesson these children were involved in a snorkel trip to see for themselves what we had been talking about.

If you are interested in joining in any of Blue View Divers environmental activities while travelling throuhg Thailand please contact us for information on upcoming events.

Reef De-netting

Artificial Reef and Coral Nursery
Koh Phi Phi is home to an artificial reef constructed two years ago at the request of the DMCR with the voluntary assistance of divers on the island including our resident Instructor Jon Morton. Pyramids formed with huge concrete blocks create a breeding ground for corals and fish and aim to take away some pressure off the popular dive sites of Koh Phi Phi Ley. This site is now home to anemones, batfish, squid, nudibranches and barracudas.

Nearby there is a coral nursery consisting of two floating racks of juvenile coral. Cuttings are taken from healthy donor colonies and left to grow with reduced threats to their survival raised above the substrate. These clippings and the donor colonies are closely monitored and at the appropriate time are transplanted out onto natural reef areas or the artificial reef. Recently, some of the mooring lines for these racks were severed and our instructors Jon and Kimmy spent hours underwater repairing the damage.

http://kimibley.blogspot.com/2008/06/coral-nursery-phi-phi-ley.html