Keeping Brunei Beaches Clean and Enjoyable

It’s Saturday morning and I’m thinking about the beach. I’m not actually on a beach, nor even planning to go to one. In fact, I’m sitting in a conference room in the middle of Bandar Seri Begawan. The meeting I’m at though is about Keeping Brunei Beaches Clean and Enjoyable. It’s an inaugural international roundtable organised by local NGO Beach Bunch.

I’m there because we’ve supported attendance by a British expert, Derek Singleton, who is Chairman of the UK Beach Management Forum. Derek gave a fascinating talk on managing over 20 miles of beach in Torbay, in beautiful South Devon. He explained his daily challenges in keeping the beaches clean and safe. Around 95% of his expenditure comes from commercial rentals or sponsorship. He also spoke about the process of getting international (“Blue Flag”) accreditation. Other speakers from the US, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Singapore spoke on waste management, beach safety and community engagement.

Over the following days, the international visitors saw a variety of Brunei’s beaches and made practical suggestions. Sadly, by that time I was back in the office. But I caught up with them again at a meeting with the Minister of Development, who explained Brunei’s actions to improve the beach environment and was keen to hear the visitors’ ideas.

A great initiative by Beach Bunch, which was formed in 2009 and has been very successful in organising beach clean-up and environmental awareness campaigns. Last month, we introduced a visiting UK Parliamentary delegation to a group of Bruneian social and environmental NGOs, including Beach Bunch co-founder Rizan Latif. The Parliamentarians were impressed by Brunei’s focus on environmental protection. We saw for ourselves the importance of the country’s biodiversity in a short visit to Temburong.