By Leanna Crowley, Marketing Communications Manager, Six Senses Laamu Resort

Since 2016, the Maldives Underwater Initiative (MUI) by Six Senses Laamu has organized a community festival in Laamu Atoll with the aim of raising awareness of and increasing protection for sea turtles. The Laamu Turtle Festival brought people from across the atoll together to pledge ‘Turtles in Laamu – Safe and Protected’. In 2019, MUI recognized the growing need to raise awareness about the conservation of entire marine ecosystems and the services they provide, in order to safeguard the Maldives from the negative effects of climate change or unsustainable practices. That is why, in 2019, the resort and local stakeholders in Laamu Atoll voted to broaden the scope of the 4th annual festival to Laamafaru Festival, or ‘Laamu’s Reefs Festival’ in Dhivehi, under the theme ‘Our Ocean – Safe and Protected’.…