Like all of you, we are very aware of the fragile state of the ocean. Ocean plastics, overfishing, mass tourism, coastal development, pesticides, sewage, warming sea temperatures, and illegal & destructive fishing methods are just a few human-caused threats to the ocean.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, there is an army of marine conservation groups all over the world who specialize in a whole array of tactics to help combat these destructive pressures on the oceans and everything that lives within it.
Marine conservation isn’t free though, in fact, it’s very expensive as it requires teams of people to research, enact, and enforce regulations, boats and fuel to patrol marine protected areas, new technologies like satellite tags and receivers to track animal movements, and custom built laboratories to cultivate new populations of threatened species for release back into the wild, just to name a few of the things that are financially very absorbent.
A juvenile leopard shark and a leopard shark egg about to hatch in one of the custom made ocean labs for ReShark a leopard shark re wilding program currently underway in Raja Ampat for which Thrive Conservation and the Misool Foundation are a part ofAs we share the same concern for the ocean’s future, and also because our livelihoods are very much dependent on the health of the ocean, we decided to lend a hand in its preservation. Now, since we are travel specialists and not marine conservation specialists we figured that the best way for us to have the most impact would be to help raise money for different marine conservation groups around the world via two different fundraising campaigns under our Snorkel for Good initiative.
Our first fundraising campaign is with our rashguard program, where we sell custom-designed rashguards made by Four Element. These rashguards are made from reclaimed ocean plastics and ghost nets and one-hundred percent of each sale goes to the Misool Foundation. The Misool Foundation is the registered charity arm of Misool Resort in Raja Ampat and their mission is to “safeguard the most biodiverse reefs on Earth through the empowerment of local communities, providing a structure by which they are able to reclaim their traditional tenure-ship of reefs.” Thanks to your rashguard purchases, since we launched this campaign we’ve been able to donate around $13,000 to the Misool Foundation!
Our Every Trip Program is our second fundraising campaign, and couldn’t be more simple. With every booking made through Snorkel Venture, we donate $100 to one of our five charity partners. Our current charity partners include Thrive Conservation, Bite Back-Shark and Marine Conservation, The Reef-World Foundation, Manta Trust, and the Misool Foundation. Each of these different marine conservation groups specializes in a whole array of conservation efforts that span from working with coastal communities, local governments, and of course the reefs and species we all love and want to protect for future generations. Again, thanks to all your bookings we were able to contribute a total of $20,000 to our charity partners this October, and are on track for over $55,000 in donations this year.
We are obviously very pleased to be able to make donations like this on an annual basis, but by exploring closer connections with these fantastic foundations and different fundraising methods like raffles, competitions, and tours with a closer Snorkel for Good links in the future we hope to be able to raise even more each year!
For more information about our Every Trip Program and the tireless efforts of our charity partners click here.
If you would like to make your own donation outside of our Snorkel For Good program, please get in touch with us and we can direct you on how to do so.
