ECOCARE – SONEVA NATURE TRIP
An award winning environment awareness program
ECOCARE Maldives runs this project to create environmental awareness among school children. No expenses are born by the participants. The school authority chooses relevant participants and staff to take part in the nature trip.
This project is run in Baa. Atoll, which is about 96 miles to the north of Malé. National and International experts give lectures on environmental issues to the participants. In addition, information-exchanging programmes and practical activities are held in this program.
Bell - ECOCARE Maldives, taking a session on Beach Erosion
The organized tasks by this project makes the opportunity available for a number of youngsters who are deprived and robbed of the opportunity to experience and appreciate what they have missing in the dusty, smoke-laden concrete city of Malé, a place totally devoid of any greenery. These children who are confined to an environment where they are constantly living in the fear of being hit by a vehicle, breath in air full of carbon monoxide and dust, have never had the opportunity to feel the cool crisp soft sand beneath their feet, are introduced to an environment full of lush green plants that protect them from the heat of the sun, gives them the opportunity to see and experience in person the beauty and peculiarity of mangrove swamps, enjoy the wild fragrance of grasses and flowers naturally grown without human interference. They are given a fraction of a chance to learn what environment is and what could be done to protect and preserve the environment for a sustainable future development. Their eyes will be open on the great magnitude of the heavy dependence the fishing industry and tourism have on the coral reefs and life around it and the great importance of protecting the reefs.
School children and the community in the islands of Baa atoll are made aware; by the school children from Male, the extent of the environmental degradation that Malé has gone through in its urbanization and warn of similar consequences which lie in store for them should they dare follow the same path of development as Malé did.
Today’s children but the political figures of tomorrow that will shoulder the burden of protecting the environment are the participants of these programs.
