Castaway Island Resort is one of the prestigious and most famous family resorts in the Mamanucas and around the world that has taken the lead in environmental initiatives to maintain and sustain the environment that surrounds their home native island “Qalito”.
Castaway Island Resort is part of the Mamanuca groups of island that has been trialing a pilot project on their very own island planting vegetables using natural organic materials that is collected and produced as waste from the island. Every morning, seaweeds are racked from along the beach front around the resort and are taken to the back for drying before its use as manure. Also dried sludge that is produced from the sewage plant is kept in dry shed before it’s mixed with other materials. Ashes from the incinerator are then collected mixed with dried seaweeds and dried sludge to create the organic manure for the vegetable farm.
From the organic manure produced, these are used to plant vegetables like tomatoes, beans, pumpkins and other vegetables, within the sewage plant area and is well monitored. Also these vegetables play a major role in taking and using up all of the nutrients that are available within the organic manure for their food sources before they are absorbed into the natural environment.
Having the pilot vegetables organic farming on site is another measure taken by the resort to control nutrients flows into the sea that would be harmful to the marine lives and coral reefs that surrounds the island.
Betani Salusalu
