The Perhentian Islands are renowned for being the most beautiful Islands in Malaysia and this title is warranted.  The coral sand beaches are lined by palm trees on one side and fringing coral reefs on the other.  If Robinson Crusoe was to be filmed they could easily use the Perhentian Islands as the set. 

However below the turquoise blue waters, not all is good.  The coral reefs are dying fast, mainly due to the hordes of tourists which search out this tropical paradise on a daily basis.  Corals grow at fastest just 15cm per year and with hundreds of tourists snorkelling and diving the coral reefs daily the breakage of coral is a big issue. 

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Mention Pulau Perhentian, Malaysia, and people would think of the sandy beach island getaway. Quiz them more, and people may say turtles. Perhentian, which means “stop-over” in Malay, is one of the islands in Malaysia where sea turtles can still be spotted either on the beach laying eggs or swimming in the water. Turtles discovered Perhentian long before humans arrived. They thrived for thousands of years, but are now struggling to survive.

At present, there are just a handful of turtle nests found of the Hawksbill, Leatherback and Olive Ridley species. Only the Green turtles have a chance to maintain their numbers with more than 2000 nests per year along a coastline of more than 300km. Considering that each nest has an average of 100 eggs, but only one in 10,000 turtle hatchlings becomes an adult, the handful of nesting numbers virtually means that the three species of sea turtles are almost locally extinct. 

Perhentian is a popular backpacker haven where many go for snorkelling or diving activities to see turtles swim gracefully underwater. However, many of these visitors are uninformed of the ethics when being in the water, and they have no qualms about touching or chasing the turtles. Even snorkelling tour operators themselves will try to catch the turtles and encourage tourists to pose with the turtles that are brought above water. This is an example of wildlife harassment.

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As a small boy Nick Hogervorst(20) from Holland loved to watch wildlife documentaries on the Discovery channel. Especially Africa drew his attention. When he got older he really went for the adventure. A three months trip to south Africa, an amazing experience. Now back in Holland he shakes up the world. Be careful with nature!

“Most of my toys were plastic wild animals or stuffed animals”, is what he remembers. “ and besides my uncle had a dairy farm where I often stayed in the holidays and helped out. I think this is where my passion for animals developed.”

After High school Nick started a study to become a veterinary assistant. the plan was to study further and become a vet. But after a while the study started to bore him so it appeared not to be the right choice. “I needed to get out and do something completely different”

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Getting your foot on the first rung of the ladder in the conservation and humanitarian sectors is a chicken and egg kind of situation – you want a job to gain experience and the employers want to employ someone with experience which you can’t have until you get a job! So HOW, through searching the web and talking to career advisers you will probably come to the conclusion that to take that first step you must volunteer. 

Volunteer travel is now big business and as the pool for governmental and corporate funding is continually shrinking, which is worsened by the increasing number of fund seekers, NGO’s are turning to volunteering as a way to fund their conservation or outreach activities.  Paying to volunteer in itself sounds wrong, but when you think of yourself as a voluntourist and, if you volunteer direct, 100% of your money is paid directly to the project then this blow is lessened. 

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