Local Scholar- Malaysia Coral Reef Conservation Project
Added to website: 19 May 2004
Firstly I would like to thank CCC staff members and volunteers for doing surveys to protect the endangered coral reefs of Malaysia. I’m very happy to be a part of the CCC family.
For the first few weeks in Pulau Pinang, I found it was very difficult to stay out of any news and entertainment. Science week was tough all the way through. Although I’m studying Marine Biology at a local university, CCC lectures were much harder than what I’ve learned. Luckily, with the help of staff members and discussions with other volunteers, I managed to pass all exams. I found that pointy dives and snorkel were very important for identifying target and none-target species.
Identifying fish was the hardest part of the science week. But when I started to do surveys, I started to love surveying fish. Even when science weeks were over, we had to continue to revise everything as target species are not always present during surveys.
The way of handling the survey in a group is really systematic. Although it may take a long time to finish a transect line, the results are be more accurate. Filling in the survey forms are a little bit confusing. Everyone is new to filling in the forms, so it’s great that we can discuss all the problems before asking the headquarter.
Apart from doing surveys, I also enjoyed the games and fun we had together. It’s great that everyone takes part in events like volleyball and doing the mascot. Out of all, I’ll always remember the show by Gus, Kieron, Jon and Richard on the last night of my stay with CCC at the Marine Park.
After all the fun, laughter and hard work with CCC, I’ll bring back my knowledge and experience to university and share it with my friends. As the president of the Scuba Diving club in UKM, I’ll share the experience with members and tell them about CCC’s work in Malaysia. Hopefully, they too can join a CCC project to help to protect coral reefs and/or forests.
CCC’s work really fascinated me from the beginning until the end.
Thank you.
Jen Nie, LEE
