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Under the auspices of ASTRO KASIH, ASTRO's Corporate Social Responsibility programme, ASTRO employees embarked on a community project back to Pulau Mabul on October 1st to 3rd, 2010 to continue its coral planting exercise and create awareness of Marine Conservation amongst school students.
Prior to that, ASTRO employees visited Mabul Island since the first trip in January this year, to participate in its coral planting exercise as part of the island's larger coral conservation programme. ASTRO has adopted a reef in Mabul known as the "Astro Kasih Reef", reaffirming ASTRO's commitment in championing the conservation of Malaysia's beautiful environment.
20 employees from various departments of ASTRO volunteered themselves to this meaningful event.Each employee is given two baby corals and planted them at the Astro Kasih Reef, previously known as Old Housereef 2 of Sipadan Water Village.
According to the local divemaster, Bobby, while the success rate of coral planting depends on various factors, the exercise itself plays an important role in raising awareness, especially amongst the diver and snorkel community. The coral reefs are facing treats from many activities carried out daily such as dynamite-fishing, drag nets and irresponsible behaviour of some divers and snorkellers. Coral transplanting exercise not only helps to rebuilt the reef but also it can also serve as an educational tool to divers about coral reefs.
Participants revisted the corals they planted previously and found their corals are growing at a healthy rate.
With the supervision of the Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment, over 20 ASTRO employees volunteered to conduct a briefing and demonstration on Marine Conservation Awareness to 70 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulau Mabul. Using the Marine Education Module as a reference, the students were taught lessons on the importance of natural conservation.
Besides educating the school kids, ASTRO employees also took the opportunity to engage the kids with activities such as dancing and sand art.
Marine Monkees is proud to be a part of the ASTRO KASIH Coral Planting and Marine Conservation programme. Keep it up ASTRO.
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