BECAUSE climate change is an imminent challenge to everyone, Southeast Asia’s largest carrier AirAsia has decided that it is high time that it gets involved, not only in the health of the skies, but also of the seas.
September saw Philippines AirAsia Chairman Maan Hontiveros leading a three-day reef and beach cleanup drive with more than 30 divers from Reef Check Philippines, International Coastal Clean-up Philippines and volunteer staff of AirAsia group from Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines in Lian, Batangas.
“We went to this small village here in Matuod in Lian, Batangas, as part of our clean-up drive. This is a village of fisherfolks who have been protecting their mangroves and reefs that we just saw during dive and that they are intact and as a result they have the best reef in Lian,” she shared.
They collected over 2,700 pieces of trash from the reef and on the beach, which composed of several notable odd items, such as plastic wrappers, plastic bags, plastic utensils, assorted wrappers, glass bottles, bottle caps, lighters, socks, diapers and batteries.
The trash were sorted and reported to local marine scientists and local chief executives to help educate the community and empower them to take an active part in protecting their environment. The team is also planning to conduct similar engagements and activities in other parts of the country.
“However, we are trying to get some areas here in Batangas to be declared as protected area because we have massive problems with regard to trash, siltation and a lot of the boats that ply interisland, they illegally dump some of their garbage, and because of the water current, those dirts get here, and there’s an unfinished golf course over in Nasugbu that has silted our reefs here and this is a very old reef system, very important with high biodiversity, an important site, that’s why De La Salle University has a marine station here and this is laboratory for marine scientists—they study our coral reefs, our marine life, our ecosystem and it’s a very valuable area that we have to protect,” Hontiveros said.
Volunteer divers, including celebrity music icon Jim Paredes, joined the AirAsia beach and reef clean up drive in Lian, Batangas on September 2.
AirAsia Reef and Beach Clean-up drive is part of the #Green24 campaign and started in Pattaya, Thailand with over 200 participants and AirAsia staff taking part in the activity in January.
#Green24 campaign is a climate- awareness movement to educate and promote climate action. This is an initiative by AirAsia as part of its effort to generate awareness on climate change and sustainability.
The campaign was formally launched last January 29, as part of AirAsia’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. The airline group simultaneously conducted a 24-hour climate-awareness movement to educate and promote climate action in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
“On our side of the world, not many people know about the issues that climate change poses, and we feel that the best thing for us to do is to inform people. Many of us don’t really see the problems coming, but at AirAsia we have seen the effects of climate change, such as Supertyphoon Haiyan [local code name Yolanda] that struck Tacloban in the Philippines, the floods that happened around the region and massive climatic changes over the past two to three years,” AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said.