Wakatobi Resort is committed to a variety of programs that provide both proactive protection for the environment and tangible benefits to the community. The Wakatobi Collaborative Reef Conservation Program was established at the time of the resort’s founding. This involved an agreement with local people to designate a 6 km section of reef as a marine sanctuary. Direct payments were provided to area villages and fishermen in exchange for honouring this no-fishing zone.
The program has now expanded to include 17 local communities around the resort, and the sanctuary now encompasses over 20km of some of the finest reefs in the world. Since the establishment of the reserve, destructive forms of fishing have been eliminated, snorkelling sites are protected by permanent moorings, fish populations have increased, and corals have returned to near-pristine status.
Wakatobi Resort has always been about more than just a great diving experience. From day one, our mission was to create a sustainable business model that would combine a superior guest experience with a source of funding to establish and maintain an environmentally and culturally sound conservation program. To this end we founded the Wakatobi Collaborative Reef Conservation Program, which is now one of the world’s largest privately-funded marine protected areas.
Wakatobi Resort has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most proactive eco-tourism resorts and has won numerous awards for operating the most conservation-minded tourism operator in the Asia-Pacific region. Based on the success of our programs, we now work with PADI’s Project AWARE to advise operators worldwide on programs and procedures that protect and enhance the marine ecosystem.
The goal of Wakatobi Resort’s conservation efforts are not just the mitigation of environmental impact caused by human activity, but to halt and actually reverse these impacts. Thanks to these efforts, we have been able to halt destructive fishing methods and unregulated exploitation of the area’s coral reefs and estuaries. Over the course of two decades, we have helped instill a newfound sense of ecological stewardship within the local community, which has led to marked improvements in the quality of the resort surroundings, seagrass beds and reefs.
Wakatobi Resort is proud of its efforts to counter destructive trends, to give back to the local communities, and to pioneer a lasting and mutually-beneficial cooperative conservation program. Here’s are some of the ways that Wakatobi Resort works to protect and preserve the reefs and the ocean environment:
The marine reserve is just one of many unique social and environmental programs we’ve established over years. In addition to conservation efforts, our operation provides additional benefits to the community including: