Bis Lamer

Following the signature of the MOU with Rogers Foundation in February 2014 on the development of a Marine Mobile Education Unit, Bis Lamer was officially launched on the 9^th of September 2014 at Rogers House, Port Louis.

The aim of Bis Lamer is to allow Reef Conservation to bring marine science and environmental issues to a number of different audiences namely:

Primary and secondary aged school children
Youth groups
Fishermen, boat and tourism operators
General public

Several themes are developed during the sessions with Bis Lamer:

Discovery of the coastal and marine environment of Mauritius
What are ecosystem services and how conserved ecosystems specially wetlands, mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs help us to be more resilient to natural calamities
Discovering about planktons and their importance
Our impacts on the marine ecosystem and how to reduce these impacts
What is climate change and how it is affecting an island like Mauritius

Even though the official launching of Bis Lamer was in September, it started running as from end of July 2014 mainly by delivering various sensitization sessions with staff from Rogers’s companies.

Since January 2015 it started visiting public schools after approval from the Ministry of Education, Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research. Reef Conservation has intervened in 14 Primary schools, 15 Secondary schools, 4 RCA school, and 1 private school sensitising 3, 265 students and teachers through Bis Lamer for the period January to June 2018. Two days were planned per school and the target groups were Std V and VI for primary and Form III students for secondary.

Since its inception Bis Lamer has received a very positive welcome by the public. From July 2014 up to now, we’ve reached and sensitised 32,021 people, 23,236 of whom were students and 8785 adults. These include schools, scouts group, hotels, private companies, commercial centres, foundations, NGOs and community groups.

In line with the Climate Change Adaptation Fund Project, a Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between Reef Conservation and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development on the 9^th of September 2014. The MOU kick start the joint implementation of the project on sensitization of coastal communities affected by climate change using Bis Lamer, development of sensitization materials and 3D Small Scale Models on mangroves ecosystem, coastal zones, coastal adaptation works as well as educational tours on mangroves ecosystem, coastal zones and coastal adaptation works.

Watch Bis La Mer in action