Throughout the past years, I have been fortunate to have been provided with numerous opportunities to engage with the wilderness. Out of my many experiences involving activities in Thailand and various other countries, the NIST action week has always been a striking experience that leaves me in awe year after year. One example includes my Action Week in year 11, where I promptly decided to go to the Khao Sok National Park in Phuket. This decision was chiefly made upon researching the national park’s man-made characteristics, tower-like limestone formations and rare species including the giant parasitic Rafflesia flower, hornbill birds, gibbons, and tigers. While such trips like this - that I have taken part in since year 6 - established my genuine passion, interest, and appreciation for nature, one that truly stood out to me was a trip to Koh Tao towards the end of 2018. Although we usually get the opportunity to emerge ourselves in nature and disconnect from the technology that we consistently drown ourselves into, I have never really understood and appreciated nature to the extent that this trip allowed me to.
Koh Tao, which translates to Turtle Island, fully lives up to its name. It is an island surrounded by crystal clear waters and perfect white sand beaches in the Gulf of Thailand. Seeing the vibrant coral reefs, the exciting biodiversity, and colorful sea creatures so far from civilization, allowed me to reflect on why nature is so important in the first place. We live and breathe due to the extraordinary trees in our ecosystem, and like all other organisms, inevitably involve ourselves in myriads of symbiotic relationships all the time. There are countless points to be made about the importance of nature, but at the end of the day, I find it genuinely interesting to emerge myself in the biodiversity and ecosystem that we so heavily neglect. It is sad to see humanities collective merciless attitude and lack of attention towards nature, but this same statement served as the driving force to why this trip was so meaningful and impactful to me.
The negativity associated with the state of our future, with endless reports, studies and news articles that emphasize the pivotal impacts of human activity on our climate nearly extracts all hope that upcoming generations will be able to experience the paramount biodiversity that we are so fortunate to. Arriving at the New Heaven Dive School in Koh Tao, however, restored some of my lost hope, suggesting that, we do, indeed, have extraordinary global citizens that are making a difference. New Heaven’s Marine conservation program is in the heart of their dive school. The New Heaven Reef Conservation Program (NHRCP) does not only inform but takes action in regards to coral reef ecology, research, and restoration. In brief, the program involves various ongoing marine conservation projects and ocean monitoring studies.
While the above video and documentary by Khen Scott-Khemis who attended the same trip in the previous year depicts the essence of the program, simply spending just over one week in this atmosphere taught me so much about our environment and the attitude we should approach it with. Our typical day began with an hour of yoga at 7 am by the ocean. This not only served as an exceptional way to get up and be ready for the day, but developed my love for the environment I was in, particularly the comforting sounds and amazing aesthetics from the dark blue ocean. I personally believe that once we are able to develop a true love and appreciation for the environment we are in, then, and only then, will we have a genuine motivation, passion and willingness to restore and so profoundly advocate for its survival.
The yoga session was usually followed by breakfast and 1 or 2 thorough lectures that comprehensively synthesized information about ecological monitoring programs, artificial reefs, sea turtle and shark populations and, coral restoration. The lectures - which we collectively transformed into over 40 pages of valuable notes - is what formed my immense interest in what we were doing. Understanding the importance of specific tasks such as EMP monitoring along a transect line, artificial reef creation and the pros of cons of each material, as well as connecting everything we learned to its impact on the environment, economy, and society, allowed me to develop a true interest and understanding of the complex interconnected ecosystem that we so easily over-simplify. And most importantly, I developed an optimistic approach to ways that we could actually help and take action towards making this change.
But what made this trip so special is that we did not simply learn about things in theory. They did not merely suggest that the impact of plastic is pernicious, we physically went to visit the landfills. Being confined in the ferocious smells and seeing the disturbance the landfills made to its surrounding environment and villagers to how it will directly make its way to the oceans in the form of microplastics is much more significant than purely hearing that ‘plastic is bad’. There are numerous other examples of this from visiting poorly constructed reservoirs to seeing previously constructed artificial reefs or collecting trash from the reefs when snorkeling.
Most notably, however, was the overarching goal of our trip itself, alongside a group of 25 like-minded peers, we constructed our own artificial reef. This process, involved hours of collective hard work constructing bottle reef nurseries and other structures (as evident in the above documentary) which we then deployed into the ocean. We are indeed aware of the importance of coral reefs and the lack of it in our oceans, so with no doubt, this is a worthwhile project. I am extremely proud of the work we have done, attaching fragmented corals to the bottle nurseries, that in the upcoming years could very well develop into full ecosystems, that could, very well, be indistinguishable as artificial reefs.
Ultimately, even when we were spending time swimming in the ocean and watching movies at night time (which of course related to our oceans, for example, finding Nemo) holistically developed my love for oceans. As Spencer - one of the extraordinary individuals in charge of the reef conservation program in New Heaven - stated, “if we are going to approach our planet in a successful way … we need to talk about what we can do not what we cant”. And I believe this statement perfectly captures the essence of the trip and the attitude in left me with. It was an inspiring experience to see what people are doing to truly restore hope, and, I, personally, with no doubt, will constantly find ways to take my share and employ myself in a life lasting job to do what I can to conserve, respect and love the environment every day whether it is simply reminding others or myself to think about the consequences of our actions to taking part in bigger projects and seeing direct change.
The following are additional reflections that provide a glimpse on some of the days within this trip.
