Boat International US Edition – June 2019

boatinternational.com • 06 2019

Almost three-quarters of Scotland’s inshore

commercial fishing fleet consist of creel

boats: vessels of less than 30ft that fish using

a method that is environmentally friendly,

species-selective and produces very little

by-catch. They bring fish to the surface alive

and unharmed, so that egg-bearing females

and juveniles can be returned to the sea. The

most familiar type of creel equates to what is

more commonly known as a lobster pot.

As national co-ordinator of the Scottish

Creel Fishermen’s Federation (SCFF), Alistair

Sinclair works to promote sustainable fishing

and support the inshore creel and hand-

dive industry. These have included a proposal

to ban trawling the seabed in inshore waters,

and campaigns against harvesting of kelp and

the damage caused by fish farms. “We are

deeply concerned by the lack of fish stocks,

chemical use and a failure of government to

act,” he says. “While we cannot claim to

represent all inshore fishermen, we at the

SCFF, which relies on our working with other

groups who have voiced their concerns in

respect of our marine environment, have our

eye on future generations and communities

who will rely heavily on clean, healthy,

productive seas. Communities and their

well-being, as well as generations to come,

are at the heart of our proposals.”

AlistairSinclair

Nationalco-ordinator,ScottishCreelFishermen’sFederation

RUNNER

UP

decade ago, Mohamed Nasheed, then president of

the Maldives, held an underwater cabinet meeting on

the sea bed, communicating by means of whiteboards

and with gestures, to highlight the threat of global

warming to the low-lying archipelago. Not surprisingly, images

of the meeting were broadcast across the world.

You might assume in a country where an entire cabinet was

versed in the use of scuba equipment that female divers might be

the norm. In 2018, Zoona Naseem became the first Maldivian

woman to become qualified to train instructors and beginners as

a PADI-certified course director – no little achievement in an

Islamic country where women are still confined to their homes.

As president of the Dive Association of the Maldives and

co-founder of the Moodhu Bulhaa Dive Centre, she was also the

first woman in the Maldives to qualify as a PADI instructor. She

became a tireless campaigner both for ocean conservation and

for Maldivian women to learn to dive, to better understand what

is at stake and to pass on that knowledge to their children. “Most

children spend the majority of their time with their mothers, so

we felt that if we educated the mums we would have a higher

chance of gaining their trust,” she says.

Naseem herself learned to dive in 1994. “I knew after that first

dive that I was going to be a PADI pro,” she says, even though at

that time “there were actually no women in the industry.” After

qualifying, she went on to work for the hotel group Banyan Tree

Holdings, eventually managing five dive centers. It was one thing

enabling tourists to appreciate the wonders of her nation’s

underwater world, but it troubled her that so few of her peers ever

got to see it. So in 2017, on International Women’s Day, she and

her husband, Shad, opened their dive center on Villingili, seven

minutes by public ferry from the capital, Malé.

Throughout the course of her career, Naseem has enabled more

than 11,000 people to dive, 400 of them Maldivian women. As a

mother, she is committed to encouraging children to learn to dive.

(Many are discouraged because their parents believe it is

dangerous.) She piloted and helped develop a government scheme

named Farukoe (“reef child”) that will ensure every Maldivian

child gets to experience a coral reef, if only by snorkeling. This

should encourage a generation to grow up aware of the importance

of protecting and maintaining a thriving marine ecosystem.

Not surprisingly she has become a marine ambassador and an

advocate for the environment, which she says is “a privilege.” And

in 2018 she received the Maldivian president’s National Award of

Recognition in the area of Diving (Recreational Scuba Diving).

As the Maldives’ former minister of education Aishath

Shiham defines it, the program “aims to connect students with

the ocean through activities like snorkeling and beach clean-ups.

Naseem was a key person we worked with to develop and launch

the program, which has resulted in more than 83 percent of

students in the country experiencing the ocean first-hand.” It’s

an initiative supported by the creation of 2,050 government

scholarships to encourage further training in diving.

Local Hero Award

Zoona Naseem

Co-founder and owner of Moodhu Bulhaa dive center on Villingili Island, Maldives

(^2019)
OCEAN
AWARDS
THE WINNERS
A
72