Tengah Island Conservation

On Monday I took the ferry from Mersing, Malaysia out to the small 1 mile circumference island in the South China Sea where I will be living for the next nine weeks, known as Pulau Tengah (Tengah Island).  While here I will be working six days a week for the organization Tengah Island Conservation (TIC).


Tengah Island Conservation is a program affiliated with the Batu Batu Resort, the only other structure found on the private island. TIC has been working tirelessly with the Malaysian government to become their own nonprofit organization, and is scheduled to succeed this goal this upcoming September. The small collection of staff that run the dive center and conservation program are extremely passionate, friendly and hardworking, and have shown nothing but kindness to me since the second I stepped off the boat onto the island. As the program has only been running a few years, the team has tirelessly worked hard to become a PADI 5 star dive center and a professional conservation internship program that only continues to grow. 

While I am here, I will be taking part in a variety of projects such as marine projects, the endangered species program, terrestrial projects, and the outreach program. The endangered species project will focus primarily on sea turtles, and will involve night patrols, boat and walking patrols, nest relocation, and hatchery management.  The marine projects will include coral reef surveys (fish surveys, invertebrates surveys, substrate surveys), coral restoration (coral nursery, transplanting, underwater cleanup), reef mapping, seagrass monitoring, and BRUVS (Baited Remote Underwater Video System).   The terrestrial projects will include habitat restoration (beach clean ups, trash sorting, tree nursery), micro mammals study, and beach profile monitoring.  Lastly, the outreach program will involve outreach with the local communities (traveling and talking to Mersing schools), as well as outreach with the Batu Batu resort guests (leading shark and turtle talks, hatchery tours). 

My daily schedule will consist of waking up at 6:45 AM to begin a 7:00 AM turtle patrol, which will vary between either walking the shorelines of the island looking for turtle tracks as well as monitoring the beach profile, or jumping on the 32’ dive boat and cruising past the beaches of the five neighboring islands looking for turtle tracks. The morning patrol will tend to last approximately an hour, and is usually followed by breakfast at the canteen with all the island staff to enjoy a typical Malaysian breakfast. At 9 we will begin our daily chores of cleaning either the Sea Turtle Hatchery, Tree Nursery, or Conservation Center, followed by a 9:45 AM meeting with the conservation team to discuss the plan for the day. From 10:00 - 12:00 and 2:30-5:00 we conduct our fieldwork, and in the evenings we will rotate between shifts to check on the hatchery, from 9:00 PM to 7:00 AM. The remainder of our time we are free to explore the island, and have the option to take advantage of the paddle boards, kayaks, gym, dive center and beach bar at our pleasure. 

 I’m very much looking forward to the next nine weeks of living in this paradise.






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