It all started with dad chasing Debs from Wild Asia around Suntec City’s Exhibition Hall last October at ITB Asia asking how he could speak to this rather austere and important-sounding figure – Dr. Reza (the head honcho at Wild Asia). After a few weeks of text stalking, we finally arranged a rendezvous and met the not-very-austere-in-the-end Dr. Reza for dinner. It’s all a bit fuzzy in my head from there on but one day several months later, we sat round a table in the shade of the bar pavillion on Pulau Tengah and drew-up the concept for BRISC – Batu Batu Reef & Island Study Centre – a partnership between Wild Asia and ourselves.
BRISC in a nutshell? Basically, we Batu Batu are building our resort on a lovely untouched island that we really don’t want to spoil. Wild Asia has the know-how and contacts to help us achieve that aim (being a social enterprise whose stated aim is to “inspire and create positive social and environmental change”). It occurred to us that a good way of going about it was to create a not-for-profit entity which offers revenue-generating nature-based activities on the island (diving, trekking etc.) and used those revenues with (fingers-crossed) some external funding to run projects to conserve, preserve and proliferate life in and around the island.
BRISC will be located behind the tree line on the Long Beach – the loveliest beach on the island – and is being designed right now by 2 architects – Ian Hall and Seng Kheong – who are volunteering their time for the cause. It’s a very exciting project and I cannot wait to see the updated BRISC plans. Here’s a photo of the first-stage BRISC layout. Will post updates as they come in.
For the official blurb on BRISC – follow this link:
http://batubaturesort.wordpress.com/brisc-competition/
Have a good weekend!
