UNEP has declared the 8th of June as world ocean day. A day that we should all think about our ocean. Marinedream was invited to introduce our Aqualife program together with Steven van Eijk, old secretary of Finance and Fabien Cousteau.

It was a day with big names like Fabien Cousteau, David Dubillet, Captain Paul Watsons and many others. The main theme was that fish stocks are depleting and we need to start acting now! A week later our minister of Agriculture and Fisheries send a letter to our Parliament that we need to find solutions for this problem. A step towards sustainability. I didn’t know how quickly I had to go back to China and continue our programs in Shanghai. Educate and inspire others to make a difference.

Every day should be world ocean day – join us to help and protect our ocean, rivers by learning what you can do to help.

It was great weather on Friday and we got together at Sentosa monorail where we departed with 20 people students/teachers of 5 schools at 8:30 in the morning. As it was the last day of school 9 other schools couldn’t join this experience. We started the day with a little stretch together with Bala yoga master and naturalist before we got onto the reef. We divided our group into 3 smaller groups who were led by experienced divers Edmund, Monica and Julie. When the first group got onto the reef – the other 2 groups had time to start cleaning the beach – within 10 minutes – 10 big bags got filled with mainly pet bottles and fishermen gear.

On the reef we found live corals: leather coral, mushroom corals and crabs and small yellow eel. The students were excited and teachers were asking us if we could organize this again J
After the reefwalk we had some really nice food that May and Cassandra cooked for us.

Cassandra See, mediacorps artiste, handed out the awards as she supports our cause to protect sharks.

Reefwalks can only be done in small groups and if you like to organize this, please contact Leykun from the Nakedhermitcrabs or the Bluewater volunteers. They have scheduled trips every month. Cek Jawa on pulau ubin is more suitable for large groups as they have made a reef bridghe so the reef doesn’t get damaged by people accidentally stepping on corals.

Why we organized this reefwalk? Singapore still has reefs and as there is continious development we need to start protecting the reef and finding solutions that economic growth and nature protection can go hand in hand. When the first reefwalk started over 10 years ago in Cek Jawa people started to learn about the beauty of the reef and dialogue started between government and environmentalist to protect the reef. Now thousands of people are able to see the beauty of this environment.