Scuba Junkie was set up by people who have a deep love and respect for the underwater world. Throughout the many years that Scuba Junkie has been operating, conservation has remained at the very heart of the company. Our conservation and sustainable minded team work hard to reduce our impacts as much as possible.
We have met with all our weekly suppliers for the resort, from the food markets to fuel providers to ensure that as little plastic as possible is used in our deliveries.
We spoke with our t-shirt and dive accessory providers and also asked them to reduce the plastic they use when sending deliveries. We went from having each t-shirt wrapped individually in plastic to getting them sent wrapped in paper and string!
Rather than selling plastic bottles of water, we provide water refilled free of charge for all of our guests. This is available at the resort and on the boats.
Although the most important thing is to REDUCE the amount of plastic we use, a beach or underwater clean-up never does any harm! We do regular clean-ups on the edge of the park and in the park itself - removing damaging plastic from the shorelines.
We are lucky that we don’t see much plastic during our dives, but should we encounter any and it can be removed safely, then we will!
Here at Scuba Junkie we adopt a no seafood policy and this goes a lot further than the belief that ‘fish are friends not food’ (which is true too!).
As a responsible dive operation we believe that we should only serve seafood if we can guarantee that it has been sustainably caught. Methods such as long-lining, trawling and other destructive methods cause irrevocable harm to the corals and decimate shark, ray and turtle populations.
The coastal communities in this area, and across the globe, rely on a healthy ocean to support themselves and their families. By reducing our seafood consumption we can ensure that these families will be able to provide for themselves for generations to come. As we cannot guarantee that the fish sold in Labuan Bajo is sustainably caught we do not serve seafood at this time.
One of the (many) reasons that the diving in the Komodo National Park is so famous is its incredible population of Manta Rays. These stunning and majestic animals are drawn to the area for many reasons, one of them being the abundance of cleaning stations. In each briefing for a 'Manta dive' we remind our divers of the importance of these cleaning stations, and why we must not swim over them and risk damaging them.
We are also strict in enforcing proper 'Manta Protocol'. Our divers are encouraged to relax, stop swimming and allow the Manta Rays to come to them. We prohibit anyone from touching, chasing or pestering any marine life, especially not these curious and intelligent rays.
We also encourage and help our divers to dive in a way that has as little impact as possible on the stunning coral reefs. Buoyancy tips are given during dive briefings and no one is taken to a site that is beyond their capabilities. We support and work with the MMF (Marine Megafauna Foundation) and often host them for their research activities.
Each day that we are out diving we collect important data the Marine Megafauna Foundation who run Dive the Data. We record a variety of data ranging from water temperatures, if we see other boats to the number of sharks and manta sightings we have. This fascinating information is collated and is extremely important for gaining a better understanding of the incredible marine world.
We also encourage all our guests to take photo ID shots of manta rays, something our staff do when they fun dive the sites as well. These photos provide an insight into the movements of individual manta rays and provide fascinating information about the species as a whole.
