CrestAquarium gives back
CRESTA – Cresta Shopping Centre has brought the Dyer Island Conservation Trust on board to help drive education about marine conservation.
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According to Cresta Shopping Centre, one of the key purposes of the newly launched CrestAquarium is to provide shoppers and guests to the centre the unique opportunity to explore an underwater world that they may never have the opportunity to see or engage with otherwise, and their hope is to spark a love for these creatures and a desire to protect them.
Their vision is to educate shoppers and especially the youth on how they can act now to protect the future of the oceans – such as recycling and being conscious of the sustainable fish list.
As part of this vision, the shopping centre has brought the Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) on board to help drive education about marine conservation and to provide a way for shoppers to ‘act’ in support for the protection of our oceans.
Pinky Ngewu of the Dyer Island Conservation Trust said at the event, “We work in the protection of all marine species. Our founder’s main passion was taking care of the Dyer Island penguins in Gansbaai in the Western Cape. Our African penguins are facing extinction and are only left with seven years to survive in the wild. We are working on protecting this species so that future generations can enjoy them too.”
One of the trust’s main goals is to discourage the use of single-use plastic and the encouragement of plastic recycling.
A large wave sculpture using recycled plastic was erected near the CrestAquarium to symbolise plastic polluting in our oceans.
“One day, if we don’t realise what we are doing, we may be swimming in waves of plastic,” said Ngewu.
The DICT Wave of Change will be a feature at the CrestAquarium to drive the educational message to consumers about plastic recycling and to provide them with an opportunity to donate to the trust via Snapscan to support their conservation efforts.
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