Sandals and Beaches Resorts’ UK tour operator, Unique Caribbean Holidays Ltd. (UCHL), will donate $100 to the Sandals Foundation for every holiday booked on World Oceans Day, 8th June 2023.
All contributions will go towards the Sandals Foundation’s ongoing marine conservation work across the Caribbean islands which Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts operate in, including Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, Grenada, The Bahamas, Curaçao and Turks and Caicos.
To get involved, UK travel agents simply need to book any holiday to any Sandals Resort or Beaches Resort with Unique Caribbean Holidays Ltd., for travel between 8th June – 31st December 2023. For every qualifying booking, UCHL will donate $100 USD towards the Sandals Foundation, the group’s charitable arm.
The Caribbean islands rely on having healthy ocean ecosystems to support local livelihoods, communities, and cultures. This ranges from the iconic conch in The Bahamas to the snapper which highlights a range of dishes in Jamaica, to the Turks & Caicos islands where healthy reefs and blue waters sustain tourism, and beyond.
The Sandals Foundation’s key conservation projects which will benefit from agent booking contributions include:
Coral Restoration in St Lucia, Jamaica and Grenada: The Sandals Foundation works with local communities in these islands to protect the ocean through coral restoration, which guests of Sandals and Beaches resorts can also get involved in. To date, 21,094 coral fragments have been planted in Jamaica and St Lucia since April 2009.
Sharks 4 Kids in Turks and Caicos: Educating children on the importance of shark conservation and how these creatures play into the larger picture of ocean conservation. From the last project administered in 2022, over 1,000 children were educated. This number is expected to be repeated at the end of the next project, which is currently underway.
Turtle conservation in Grenada and Jamaica: In Grenada and in Jamaica the Sandals Foundation provides support to turtle conservation for Hawksbill, Leatherback and Green Sea Turtles. In Grenada, the main focus is on community and student engagement to increase awareness of the importance of turtle conservation. In all projects, turtles are tagged to increase the scientific knowledge gained through tagging, such as measurement of nesting habits and mortality. In Jamaica, over a record 25,000 hatchlings were released during the last nesting season from May 2022 – March 2023. Guests staying at Sandals and Beaches resorts in the Ocho Rios region of Jamaica can also book to participate in turtle hatching experiences through Islands Routes. 3,503 of these experiences were administered during 2022.
Lionfish Culling: Lionfish are invasive species with no natural predators in marine space. Their presence is a threat to marine biodiversity in the Caribbean as they consume large numbers of juvenile fish. Sandals Foundation Marine Wardens and Sandals and Beaches resorts’ watersports staff (who are authorised to remove lionfish for conservation purposes) regularly remove lionfish from the marine sanctuaries. Guests staying at any of Sandals and Beaches’ resorts – except in The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos – can participate in the PADI Invasive Species Tracker speciality certification, as well as special Lionfish Hunting dives on-resort which help to raise funds for additional lionfish work throughout the region.
Future Goals, Curaçao: Together with a local company based in Curaçao, Limpi Recycling, the Sandals Foundation has collected fishing nets from the ocean and recycled plastic waste, creatively transforming it into football goals to be used in local schools and impacting more than 750 students island-wide. At the end of the programme’s first year, 40 football goals are in use. These were made from recycled plastic bottles and caps – of which 600,000 have been collected through recycling efforts of residents, plus clean-up drives at beaches and in the streets. Each ‘goal’ uses approximately four square-meters of ghost fishing nets, equating to 160 square meters retrieved from the ocean. The remains were used to make handy nets to transport footballs, made available by adidas, of which 300 will be in use.
Marine Sanctuaries, Jamaica: The Sandals Foundation hires and trains local fishers as wardens to monitor these sanctuaries and to interact with local fishing communities, in order to improve understanding and build support towards conservation efforts. Currently 12 community personnel are employed at the two Fish Sanctuaries managed by the Sandals Foundation. Teams are trained, with some PADI certified to the Dive Master level, and administer multiple activities including coral outplanting, public education, patrolling and other activities.
Mangrove Planting: Through various partners across the Caribbean in all Sandals and Beaches resorts’ destinations, the Sandals Foundation has developed educational videos and books, and worked with local community volunteers to replant mangrove populations, restoring fish population and further supporting food security in the Caribbean.
Environmental education through collateral development, Antigua: In 2022, funding was provided to the Environmental Awareness Group in Antigua to provide hands-on environmental education experiences for primary school students, to improve their understanding of coastal and marine natural resources. This resulted in the engagement of 1,376 Grade 4 students and 88 teachers across 57 primary schools, plus 1,534 stakeholders and 28,755 accounts reached across social media.
Blue Certification – Environment/Community – Jamaica and Grenada: In partnership with Oceanic Global, this project engaged four hospitality and leisure businesses in Salt Marsh Trelawny, Jamaica. These businesses were engaged to increase their capacity in marine conservation. Through a blue assessment and training, business leaders were taught the importance of streamlining their business practices with the presence of the marine environment in close proximity. Recycling, the need to utilise biodegradable materials in their business processes, and other key elements were taught during this project.
Ocean Connect in Barbados, Grenada, Antigua, and The Bahamas: The Sandals Foundation works with local families and children in these islands, teaching them how to swim and harnessing a healthy ocean relationship.
Agents can book online or by calling UCHL’s experienced Sales Executives on 0808 164 3459. For more information about Sandals Resorts agents can visit the brand-new trade portal, www.sellingsandals.co.uk, or call Agency Sales General enquiries on 0207 590 0210. For more information about the Sandals Foundation, visit www.sandalsfoundation.org
