Our team recently collaborated with the Green Semporna, WWF Malaysia, Ministry of Tourism, Culture, & Environment Sabah, JH Scuba, and Borneo Komrad to organise a Community Environmental Leadership Camp. This camp was a capacity-building and development program for the underserved community living in coastal areas in Sabah, to explore their leadership potential and maximise their capacity to drive solutions or actions in their respective area. The participants were particularly young people living in biodiversity hotspots or priority conservation areas.

Our colleague, Adzmin, was invited as a panellist in the recent Participatory Management Session with Tourism Operators in Semporna, organised by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, & Environment Sabah and MOTAC. The aim of this workshop was to discuss the current tourism issues in Semporna as a result of recent social media postings on tourism activities involving touching and attempts to ride a whale shark in Semporna.

Adzmin shared about Green Fins, an environmentally friendly tourism guideline for dive centres, and also spoke about Eco-Friendly Snorkeling Guide Training. The main aim of his session was to encourage and present the opportunities for dive centres and tourist guides to attend these trainings organised by RCM and supported for KEPKAS, to upgrade their skills and get themselves certified.

Cintai Mantanani

Our homestay programme on Mantanani Island is also showing great progress. A team from KePKAS and Sabah Tourism Board recently paid a visit to Homestay Mantanani, and also visited several of our other efforts on the island such as the Virgin Coconut Oil production factory, the Mantanani Plastic Recycling Centre (MPRC) and the Dewan Mini Homestay Mantanani.

During this visit, the Homestay Mantanani Group voiced out the challenges they face, and their needs to the directors of the ministries. These government representatives also were able to witness first-hand the current waste management practices on the island. Dewan Mini Homestay Mantanani received a contribution of RM5,000 from Sabah Tourism Board.

This sum will be used to purchase several things for the hall, such as a sound system, tables, and chairs. These will provide comfort for participants during activities to be held in the hall. For the record, the homestays received a total of 411 visitors from January to November 2022, bringing in a total income of RM44,856.

Our waste management efforts on the islands have also shown great progress. The following is the waste collected for the entire of 2022:

• 72,949 plastic bottles

• Food waste: 51,408.1kg

• Plastic waste: 4,109.4kg 

• Tin/ glass waste: 2,056.9kg

• Other waste: 2,958kg

Efforts to upgrade our MPRC and VCO production centre have also been done through the installation of solar panels. These panels can now generate almost 5,000W. All our machines in both these facilities, including the bailer and extruder machine are now fully solar-powered.