Hurawalhi Maldives is committed to implementing eco-friendly policies and striving for a healthy environment for guests, employees and local communities, with the Marine Biology Center playing an important role in community outreach programs that focus on the protection of the marine environment.

To highlight the fact that our daily choices can have significant implications on the state of the natural environment we are living in, Hurawalhi’s resident marine biologist Lisa Bauer paid a visit to the Lhaviyani Atoll Education Centre on the neighbouring local island of Hinnavaru. Lisa conducted an one hour educational session on marine debris, during which 17 pupils, aged between 14 and 17, found out everything about the harmful effects of littering and debris. Lisa did an amazing job helping the pupils understand that not only is debris an eyesore, but its impacts are much greater: it damages habitats, entangles wildlife, harms marine life that mistakenly ingest the trash thinking it’s food, and is hazardous to human health and costly to our economies.

After the presentation, Lisa invited the children to take part in a drawing contest, aimed at raising their awareness of the environment through inspiring their creativity. One group of pupils had to draw the fate of a plastic bottle in the ocean and the consequences thereof, and the other group was tasked to draw an object that could be made from recycled plastic bottles. Lisa was impressed by the pupils’ knowledge and looks forward to working with Mrs. Fazna Farique, the school’s principal, on future projects to ensure that we’re all part of the solution not the pollution!

Did you know?

• 90% of debris in the ocean is plastic

• 12.7 million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch measures more than 700,000 square kilometers – that’s 7 times the size of the Maldives
• It can take as much as 650 years for plastic items to degrade
• Microplastic enters the food chain, which means we eat what we discard
• During your holiday at Hurawalhi, you can adopt a turtle to support the Olive Ridley Project, and visit the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Centre on Naifaru to support Naifaru Juvenile, a local NGO.