Misool Eco Resort - Raja Ampat, Indonesia

27 January 2012: Good news comes in Threes!

Good news always comes in threes. Our first juicy piece of news is that Misool Eco Resort has been selected as a finalist in the Tourism for Tomorrow awards! We submitted a lengthy application late last year, and we are now one of 3 finalists in the Destination Stewardship category. We'll have an evaluator visiting us in the coming weeks to learn more about Misool Eco Resort's approach to interweaving tourism and conservation. And we've got quite a lot to show him...

tourism for tomorrow finalist misool eco resort

Aside from our everyday work of showing our guests around the world's richest reefs, we've been very busy these past few months with some new conservation projects. As part of the extension of our No-Take Zone last year to include Daram, we agreed to build a kindergarten in the local village of Fafanlap. Construction is now well underway, and we're very excited for these kids to start their schooling. We are also setting up a new Ranger outpost in Daram so that our rangers can monitor activity for several days at a stretch without needing to return to the basecamp.

We'll be attending the global summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council in Tokyo from April 17-19, where the winners of the Tourism for Tomorrow awards will be announced. Just to make it this far into the competition is a tremendous honour and inspiration for us - we're rubbing shoulders with the likes of Banyan Tree, Inkaterra Peru, and REI Adentures. You can see the full list of finalists here.

misool ranger patrol raja ampat

Our Ranger boat 'Baseftin' patrolling Daram

misool baseftin kindergarten project

foundations of the kindergarten in local village Fafanlap

walls going up!

The second piece of fantastic news is that we, or rather our charity arm Misool Baseftin, has been awarded a 5,000 USD grant. In their first ever 'Solution Search: Turning the Tide for Coastal Fisheries,' Rare and National Geographic, sought applications from organisations worldwide with demonstrated innovations that benefit coastal communities and marine ecosystems. You can read our entry, 'Defending the Heart of Marine Biodiversity: Community Stewardship of Raja Ampat's Reefs,' here. You can also download the press release here. Our dear friend and indefatigable shark-lover Mary O'Malley will be accepting the award on our behalf in Washington, D.C., on February 8th. Big thanks to everyone who cast their vote for us in December!

And our final tasty nugget of good news is to introduce you to our new Misool Manta Project. As many of you know, we've welcomed 2 new dive guides to our team this year. In addition to being stellar guides, Calvin and Becky also happen to be enthusiastic marine biologists. They've made it their business to set up a database of images and video all the mantas we're seeing in the area... and it turns out there's a lot of them! The data will help us understand migration routes for mantas moving through Raja Ampat, which is a crucial step in ensuring the continued survival and protection of mantas.

Our guests have also been treated to Becky and Calvin's popular 'Manta Researcher for a Day' program. This consists of a Manta Masterclass in which guests learn more about the physiology and behaviour of rays, as well as how to differentiate between species, determine gender, and take ID photos. The workshop is followed by two data collection dives on Magic Mountain. The evening features a debrief to discuss the findings from the day.

Featured to the right is "Falaya," the very first manta identified in the Misool Manta Project in August. She's a lovely 2.5 meter reef manta with striking black colouring. Her name translates as 'manta ray' in the local Misool language. She hasn't been seen again since... wonder where she's gone?

We've also been deploying 'Manta Cams' to record animal behaviour undisturbed by us noisy divers. At the conclusion of the dive, the guides set up a little Go Pro camera on a weighted tripod and hit record. The Manta Camrecords for 3 hours, and in addition to collecting additional manta ID shots, it lets us observe some really neat behaviour like sharks getting cleaned.

Special thanks goes to our friends at Reef Photo & Video for donating the GoPro system we use to collect this data.

If you'd like to sign up for the Manta Misool Project newsletter, please email us at misoolmantaproject (at)misoolecoresort (dot) com. You can download the January newsletter here. Don't forget to friend the Misool Manta Project on Facebook!


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