ECO RESORT

Weda Reef & Rainforest Resort was, in 2015, selected by Scuba Diver Australasia as one of the top sixteen Eco Resorts of their region.

Weda Eco Resort and Coral Reef from above

Eco tourism in our opinion means more than putting a solar panel on your roof. Eco resort also means:

  • That most of the building materials are coming from a close range of the resort and whenever possible have been bought from the local communities
  • No trees out of a forest have been used at all. For every tree (coming out of gardens from the villagers) we replanted many more
  • The local community did most of the building and got training and education to improve their skills. For example training in installation of water and electricity
  • Ninety percent of the employees are people from Halmahera.

Our environmentally friendly technologies include:

  • Solar water heaters, providing hot showers in the resort.
  • Ultra low emission outboard engines for the dive boats.
  • Solar power and batteries, that provide much of our 24-hour electricity.
  • Wind turbine for top-up electricity.
  • Making drinking water with filters and UV technology.

All eight bungalows in Weda Resort were built from leftovers of the production of sagu from palm trees. For the people of Halmahera sagu (starch extracted from the pith of Sago palm stems) is a major staple food. We used the leftovers for:

  • The roofs were made from dried pinnated Sago palm leafs, plaited by the local people.
  • The walls were made from dried sago palm ribs (gaba-gaba).

Together with the tiled floors the bungalows offer a perfect blend of traditional techniques and modern comfort. The houses are cool, even during hot tropical afternoons. For your comfort we also installed ceiling fans, for some extra breeze.

 

For more images of our traditional eco bungalows, have a look at the Bungalow Gallery here.

CONSERVATION AND EDUCATION

Our Sawai Ekowisata foundation goals are conservation and education.

Our programs: purchasing and protecting primary forest (900 hectares now), planting mangroves, managing a Sea turtle conservation project, we built and are running a Kindergarten (85 children) and English classes in the village. Further we have been building public toilets and providing fresh water to the villagers of Sawai Itepo. We hope to be able to play a bigger role in marine conservation in near future. We work together with our good and important neighbor The Aketajawe National Park (Taman Nasional Aketajawe-Lolobata ). Several programs we made for Indonesian television can be watched at: YouTube channel Rob Sinke

RECOGNITION

Rob and Linda with Adrian

In 2015 Weda’s founder Rob Sinke was a guest at the famous Indonesian talk show “Kick Andy” to talk about his and Linda’s efforts for the environment and social situation on Halmahera. Two years earlier, Rob received the prestigious “Pahlawan untuk Indonesia” Award out of the hands of the Indonesian Minister for Environment Protection. In 2009 Rob received the Kalpataru Award for Nature Conservation from the Governor of North Sulawesi for his conservation work on North Sulawesi. You can read more about this on our vision on Eco tourism page on the Divers Lodge Lembeh website.