Cintai Mantanani: April - June 2022

Cintai Mantanani is a long-term effort by Reef Check Malaysia, which strives to ensure the community's economic well-being while protecting our marine environment. Currently, we have a team of three based on Mantanani Island running the projects on the ground relating to waste management, plastic recycling, alternative livelihoods, and community-based tourism. 

WASTE MANAGEMENT PROJECT

On Mantanani Island, we have replaced and repaired the recycling bins around Kampung Padang.

At the same time, we have also installed 5 signage on waste management practices around the village, targeting potential tourist areas. This was done to encourage proper waste disposal habits and also inform the tourists of this initiative on the island.

We’ve also awarded 63 households with a certificate for their excellent performance in our waste management program for the year 2021. This initiative was done to recognize their efforts, commitment, and endless support in ensuring waste is properly managed on Mantanani Island.

On Larapan Island, a total of 105 houses with 950 household members are now participating in our pilot waste management project. We have since collected more than 2,900kg of waste, which has also been properly disposed of. We’ve also successfully organised a Larapan Island Clean-Up Day, attended by 64 participants who collected more than 1,800kg of waste!

COMMUNITY-BASED ECO-TOURISM PROGRAMME

Our Community-Based Eco-Tourism (CBET) is also moving forward on Mantanani Island. Under this initiative, 14 islanders from Homestays Mantanani have been recently trained and certified as First Aid Emergency Responder.

In May, we conducted another assessment for the homestays, using the same ASEAN Homestays Standard. The purpose of this assessment was to evaluate the progress of homestays’ improvement since our CBET Project started. In the previous assessment, Homestays Mantanani scored around 61% while the recent score has increased to 70%, showing a remarkable improvement on certain criteria.

First Aid Emergency Responder training

Assessment of the homestays using the same ASEAN Homestays Standard

We’ve also had the opportunity to empower 11 homestay operators to develop various promotional materials and packages to promote community-based eco-tourism on Mantanani. We engaged local tourism players such as nature guides and dive guides in the process of compiling all the potential CBET activities. As a result, we have produced and printed a Mantanani CBET Booklet, to promote the local tourism activities that can be found on the island.

Cintai Mantanani : January - March 2021 News

Our team on the island have been working tirelessly to address the issue of waste management on the island, as there is still no proper municipal waste system in place. We've recently had to spend over RM1,000 to send out the trash collected on the island from December-January to proper dumping site on the mainland. We'd like to thank Yayasan Hasanah, GEF SGP Malaysia, and The Coca-Cola Foundation for supporting this waste management program, as well as Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia for lending us his land for temporary waste collection and waste segregation. 

Plastic waste ready to be sent out of the island

Plastic recycling bins have been placed around the village, each bin shared by 2-3 families. The PET/HDPE plastics collected will be  compressed before being sent out and purchased by a recycling centre in Inanam. A total of 753kg of plastics were sent out in early January. However, we are struggling the cost of handling and transportation, as they exceed the amount received from the sale of the recyclables, by almost 6 times! 

Magnets and eco-purse set

 We're also working on recycling plastics into merchandise that can be sold to generate income for the islanders. We are currently in the progress of making recycled HDPE fridge magnets, to be sold together with recycled plastic wrap eco-bags made by the islanders. Other local products produced by the locals include the Virgin Coconut Oil, Sambal Cukup Rasa, Eco Purse made from single use sachet, and Fridge Magnet Eco Set. These products are marketed on an online marketing platform called Mantanani Local Product, as an effort to help the local community to earn a side income and support the recovery from COVID-19. 

Participants during the homestay training programme

Apart from that, a total of four training modules were developed and delivered to local homestays operators on the island. More than 20 participants from 11 homestays participated in these series of training aimed at improving their homestay quality and services based on the Homestays ASEAN Standard criteria. The modules included topics on management and challenges, developing marketable packages, safety and emergency procedures as well as biodiversity and cultural awareness.