Alexander Yee in the “plastic bottle house” on Libaran.
KOTA KINABALU: FOSTER (Friends Of Sea Turtles Education & Research) has secured a sponsorship funding from a USA-based company, AquaGoat Finance, towards the construction of a new turtle hatchery and funds to carry out 500m of community beach cleaning on Libaran island for a year.
FOSTER has been operating a sea turtle protection program on the island for the last nine years through a Memorandum of Understanding signed with Sabah Wildlife Department on 27th August 2018.
What sets this sponsorship apart is that the amount of RM10,000 (RM4,000 for the turtle hatchery and RM6,000 for the adoption of cleaning of 500m of beach for a year) will be paid using AquaGoat tokens, a next generation ecological DeFi (decentralized finance) token.
AquaGoat token is a yield-generating social crypto currency which recognizes the harmful effects of manmade processes on the oceans and aims to reduce, mitigate and reverse these effects. The team of AquaGoat Finance therefore sets aside a portion of every transaction fees to an AquaGoat “Ocean Blue Fund” which the team uses to fund ocean cleaning and marine conservation initiatives.
FOSTER president Alexander Yee, who is a resort operator, owner of Malaysia’s first Rumah Terbalik (Upside Down House) and a conservationist, is upbeat and excited over this sponsorship.
“I have self-funded the sea turtle conservation work on Libaran Island for over six years before the receipts from tourism activities made the work self-sustainable,” said Alexander.
“However, the Covid pandemic which resulted in the closure of international boarders of Malaysia has resulted in zero visitor-ship to island since February 2010. I was not prepared to stop the work on Libaran Island so I started to source for funds from abroad,” he said.
Alexander came across the website of AquaGoat Finance and proceeded to contact them. Within three weeks, he managed to convince the team at AquaGoat Finance and resulted in this sponsorship collaboration.
Jhunehl Fortaleza, charity and outreach coordinator of AquaGoat Finance was in jovial mood during the AMA (Ask Me Anything) session beamed live from Vancouver and San Francisco for a world-wide audience early morning at 7am, Malaysia time.
“This is the first partnership of many (yet to come) for AquaGoat Finance this summer and it is the first of its kind where we will be paying for the construction of a sea turtle hatchery and to pay the villagers for beach cleaning using the AquaGoat tokens,” said Jhunehl.
“It is not just good for the sea turtles but also good in stimulating the economy for the village and put the work on world stage!” she added.
By entering into this collaborative sponsorship, FOSTER agrees to construct a sea turtle hatchery on Libaran Island and also continues in the community beach cleaning which enters into its seventh year.
The new hatchery will be constructed on the village side of the island and it will be aptly named “AquaGoat Sea Turtle Hatchery.”
In 2019, the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued an order that sets out the characteristics of “digital currency” and “digital tokens” that are prescribed as being securities for the purposes of Malaysia’s securities law. While the Inland Revenue Board has also indicated that income earned through crypto currency trading is subject to the Income Tax Act 1967.
“This is not an investment nor is there any trading taking place, it is about an alternative way of transferring money and what better way to have one of the world’s fastest technologies ‘catches up’ with one of the world’s slowest creatures through funding of this sea turtle conservation work!” said Alexander.
As Malaysia extends its Movement Control Order (MCO) by two more weeks, Alexander has indicated that the construction of the sea turtle hatchery on Libaran can only start in July. He will also be launching the seventh edition of the community beach cleaning on Libaran Island in July.
For anyone interested to make a difference by bringing back our clean beach, you can email to fosterseaturtle@gmail.com