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Marine Museum Open July 2007
Museum officially opened
Oct 30, 2008
In late July 2007 after a few building problems caused by the weather and termites the ReefDoctor Marine Museum and Resource Centre was officially opened by the Head of Ifaty Fokotany Bruno alongside representatives of FIMIHARA, ReefDoctor, IHSM, ORTO (Association of Tourism for Toliara province) and DRDR (Direction Régionale de Développement Rural).
The marine museum is located on the beach front on the property of the University of Toliara and is easily visible and FREE to access by IHSM and University students, village school children, all villagers and tourists alike.
Thanks to the kind donation and support of ORTO member and owner of the Saxaphone hotel Toliara (which has its own marine museum) Mr. Alan Bernard has provided the museum with a wide selection of regionally occurring gastropod and mollscus species as well and some fish and invertebrate specimens.
The museum also houses informative posters and displays about the local environment (marine and littoral), threats facing the Bays environments and conservation ideas created by the Environmental education team headed by Miss. Carola Zardo and Mr. Benjamin De Ridder. The outside of the museum has been painted with a mural of the reef environment done by our Educational Art Directors Mr. Stephan and Mr. Nad and the 1st prize winners of the Ifaty schools art competition have been placed inside the museum for all to see.
The aim of the museum is to educate local people and tourists about the local environment and problems associated with it. There are notes on good tourism practices, such as not buying illegal shells and treading on the coral. This part of the museum has gone hand in hand with the tourism information leaflets given to all Hotels under the collaboration with the ORTO and the implementation of the Rose Garden Marine Protected Area – already a popular tourist destination.
The museum is not only for tourists however and it is planned that local people especially local school children and ReefDoctor Kids Club attendees to visit the museum as part of the new school marine curriculum and kids club activates, benefiting from a better understanding of their environment, the threats facing it and what they can do to help.
