We are the Save Koh Tao Marine Branch, a community group made up of dive schools, divers, small businesses, and residents of the island of Koh Tao. We share the common goal of wanting to monitor, protect, and restore our local marine resources.

The Koh Tao Debris Master plan is our way of helping in the fforts taken over the last several years by the local community and government. For example, several years ago, they remanaged the waste disposal system on the island, cleaned up the dump site, bought an incinerator, and also a new collection truck. But, these efforts were not entirely sucessful mostly becasue the capacity for waste is 6 tons per day, but in the high season they are recieving up to 9-10 tons per day. Even with 400,000 baht of the money made at the yearly Save Koh Tao Festival going to subsidize the rubbish collection, it is still to much to deal with.

We hope to make thier efforts more sucessful and give back to the environment and society of the island by dealing with the supply side of the rubbish and debris problem. And have received the Ocean Action Project Grant from Project AWARE to get things going as well as funding and support from PADI. We will use this money to kickoff projects in 4 areas:

• Rubbish Bins on the beaches and walking roads
• An island clean-up crew
• A Rubbish reduction awareness campaign
• and signage all around the island