Batu Batu & The Environment
As the only development on Pulau Tengah, Batu Batu is responsible for and committed to preserving and enhancing the island’s natural habitat and its surroundings.
Pulau Tengah’s natural environment is extremely rich and we have recorded sightings of over 100 species of bird, 312 species of flora, Pacific Bottle-Nose Dolphins, Black-Tipped Reef Sharks, Green and Hawksbill Turtles, otters and Dugongs or sea cows. Green and Hawksbill turtles land on our beaches to lay their eggs.
The resort privately funds conservation projects to learn more about and then protect and enhance our island’s amazing natural environment. In late 2013, a visiting tropical botanist from Belgium conducted a six-week long botanical study of the island’s flora in conjunction with the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) and has provided us with a comprehensive database of all the island’s flora and a comprehensive herbarium. Dr. Bruno Senterre’s consultancy report identified endangered or rare species on the island and it is now Batu Batu’s responsibility to monitor and maintain these going forward.
In 2014, our two dive instructors Adam and Carmen set-up Turtle Watch Camp at Batu Batu (TWC) run by marine biologists and staffed by paying volunteers to study, monitor and protect the critically endangered and endangered Hawksbill and Green Turtles found in our waters. This project has gone from strength to strength with over 6,000 hatchilngs successfully released from our TWC hatchery since inception. The project enjoys the support of Johor Marine Parks and Malaysia’s Department of Fisheries. Our team at TWC have also initiated a coral regeneration project using recycled glass bottles from the resort’s operation and are looking to focus research and monitoring effots on the health and variety of our surrounding coral reefs and marine life.
Whilst sustainable practices are not always easy to adopt as a new resort on a tiny, uninhabited island, within a culture where sustainability is often viewed as foreign and inefficient, Batu Batu is taking little steps towards being increasingly responsible in order to protect our amazing natural environment. As each day passes, we look to add more and more to this list.
These little steps include:
- Treating and recycling waste water – a specially designed and built sewage system where all sewage and grey water are treated and recycled for use as water for irrigation.
- Use of LED lighting throughout the majority of the resort to reduce energy use.
- Solar water heaters on all of our villas.
- Extensive use of FSC-certified recycled teak furniture throughout the resort.
- Salt water chlorination system in our (fresh water) swimming pool.
- Malin + Goetz toiletries provided in-room – paraben-free with a focus on using natural products and re-using and re-filling larger bottles to reduce plastic waste.
- Use of re-fillable glass bottles in villas for guests’ drinking water to reduce plastic waste.
- Initiation of a recycling programme for waste which is work-in-progress and consistently proves to be a challenge.
Sourcing from the local town of Mersing where possible and supporting this small but growing local economy.
Funding of research and studies of the island such as Dr. Bruno Senterre’s flora stucy in collaboration with the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia and ornithological studies conducted during our opening years.
Funding and set-up of conservation project Turtle Watch Camp at Batu Batu.