It is a silver award in ”Best at Wildlife & Nature Conservation” category for Malaysian island resort Batu Batu and its homegrown biodiversity management initiative at the WTM World Responsible Tourism Awards 2019. By Mallika Naguran
Pulau Tengah, 12 December 2019. Batu Batu Resort and Tengah Island Conservation (TIC) clinched silver in the Best for Wildlife & Nature Conservation category at the World Responsible Tourism Awards 2019 by World Travel Mart (WTM) held in London, United Kingdom recently.
Batu Batu is a rustic off-grid island retreat on Pulau Tengah in the protected Johor Marine Park off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The 22-guestroom resort strongly believes that private sector tourism can act as a catalyst for positive change through the preservation and regeneration of the rich but fragile biodiversity around its amazing island and beyond.
Batu Batu resort founded a conservation focused NGO to preserve fragile biodiversity in Malaysia.
The resort’s management has strong conviction that tourism can have positive impacts on the local environment and community. That is why the resort founded and provides core funding for Tengah Island Conservation (TIC), a biodiversity management initiative dedicated to the research, rehabilitation and regeneration of the surrounding natural environment.
Tengah Island Conservation (TIC), based at the Tunku Jalil Conservation Centre on Pulau Tengah, employs four full-time conservation scientists. TIC is dedicated to the research, rehabilitation and regeneration of the natural environment. TIC’s systemic and community- driven approach is to conserve and protect flora, fauna and marine ecosystems by informing, inspiring and involving relevant stakeholders, government, biodiversity specialists, the tourism industry, and local community.
Turtle hatchlings being counted as one of the activities of the Tengah Island Conservation.
To date, TIC has released over 17,500 critically endangered and endangered sea turtle hatchlings, patrols 21,000 acres daily to prevent poaching, removed over 18 tonnes of marine debris from local beaches and reefs over 2018 and 2019 and cleaned, mapped and surveyed over 1,000,000 m2 of coral reef.
Batu Batu and TIC jointly have also initiated the Mersing Islands Multi-Stakeholder Sustainable Tourism (MUST) Action Plan together with the local Mersing District Council and other stakeholders, as well as an environmental awareness programme in schools. The MUST programme aims to co-create structured, informed multi- stakeholder tourism planning for the area to conserve the area’s valuable biodiversity for the benefit of local communities and future generations.
“As a tourism operator, we strive to operate responsibly and believe that tourism must support biodiversity and local communities. It has been an extremely challenging journey, and to be recognised alongside this cohort of incredible organisations for something that we work hard at every day is an amazing achievement,“ said Cher Chua-Lassalvy, owner and Managing Director of Batu Batu Resort.
Volunteers support the programmes run by Tengah Island Conservation along with tourist involvement, thus creating positive impacts through tourism.
Tanya Leibrick, Programme Director for TIC said “We are over the moon to have been recognized at the prestigious WTM World Responsible Tourism Awards. As a first time participant, we are incredibly proud to have won a Silver Award, and of our team and all their hard work. TIC started as conservation project within Batu Batu with a team of two. With their support, we are now a registered non-profit organisation with a team of four scientists and hope to expand our conservation programmes to try to make a real difference to environmental protection in our area. It is a great example of tourism supporting biodiversity and the positive impacts that can come from partnerships between the private and non-government sectors.”
WTM World Responsible Tourism Award (WRTA) aims to inspire, educate and challenge. The WRTA encourages change in the industry, and singles out for recognition those who are taking responsibility and can evidence that they are having a positive impact, that they are making tourism better. In the Best for Wildlife and Nature Conservation category, judges looked for innovative examples of tourism businesses that have made a demonstrable and significant difference locally, initiatives which they hope will inspire and encourage others and which have not been dependent on a great deal of external grant funding.
Photos: Batu Batu website