Sandals Resorts visitors can help preserve and protect the Caribbean Sea.
Work is being done through the not-for-profit Sandals Foundation.
Guests of Sandals Resorts throughout the Caribbean can help hatch turtles, learn to rebuild dying reefs, and curtail invasive marine species.
“As guests return to enjoy our beautiful Caribbean, World Oceans Day is a reminder that its beauty and health is our responsibility,” said SRI Executive Chairman and The Sandals Foundation Founder and President, Adam Stewart. “Over the next ten years, we [The Sandals Foundation] have promised to develop and implement conservation efforts, engaging more than 100,000 people in educational efforts, planting 30,000 coral fragments and seeing thousands of turtle hatchlings to the sea.”
According to Stewart, a sixth-generation Jamaican, preservation of the Caribbean is personal. “The Caribbean is our home and the sea, the center of our lives. Inviting visitors to join in our efforts to preserve and protect all that it offers is a privilege and an opportunity to share why we are so passionate about it and take it very seriously.”
Participate in Caribbean Turtle Conservation
From May to December, endangered sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs along Caribbean beaches. With locally based partners such as the Oracabessa Foundation in Jamaica, visitors can take part in the Sandals Foundation and SRI’s efforts to reduce the loss of turtle nests due to predators and unfavorable weather conditions and once hatched, help vulnerable baby turtles make their way to the sea.
Last year, SRI and the Sandals Foundation assisted in the release of 18,940 hatchlings. This year, Sandals plans to see anywhere from 16,000 to 23,000 hatchlings venture into the Caribbean Sea, and invites visitors to take part in Island Routes’ Turtle Watching Experience, where visitors of Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts in Ocho Rios work with local turtle conservation authorities and help monitor thousands of fresh hatchlings as they journey into the sea.
