LADY MUSGRAVE EXPERIENCE ACHIEVES ADVANCED ECOTOURISM CERTIFICATION.
Congratulations to our newest certified operator, Lady Musgrave Experience, for achieving Advanced Ecotourism certification for Lady Musgrave Island Day Tour and Sleep on the Reef Experience.
Lady Musgrave Island is part of the Bunker group (named after their discoverer, Captain Eber Bunker), made up of 3 coral cays and 5 islands, Lady Musgrave, East and West Fairfax Islands and the East and West Hoskyns Islands. The island is also referred to as Wallaginji (meaning beautiful reef) by its Traditional Owners. The area is culturally significant to the Tarebilang Bunda, Bailai, Gooreng Gooreng, and Gurang Traditional Owner groups and is accessed for traditional use.
Lady Musgrave Experience allows visitors to enjoy many experiences in their day tours: snorkelling on the great barrier reef is something that will stay with guests for a lifetime and is an amazing experience. Alternatively, if guests prefer to stay dry, the glass bottom boat tours allow visitors to have the full reef experience and view the underwater world without getting wet. The marine life around Lady Musgrave is abundant with fish, a typical healthy reef assemblage of soft and hard corals, sea sponges and anemones.
From October, when breeding season begins, the waters are full of activity - especially with turtles returning to mate and laying eggs on Lady Musgrave Island. Here tourists can snorkel with Green and Loggerhead turtles within the protected waters of the reef lagoon all year round. From November through to January up to 100 Green Sea Turtles and 10 Loggerhead Turtles can be found nesting on the beach each night. From June-November each year it’s also possible to experience the beauty and magic of the migrating Humpback whales as they travel these warm waters to give birth, feed, mate and play.
Lady Musgrave Island is identified as a significant seabird breeding island that provides habitat for thousands of nesting seabirds including the White-Capped Noddy Terns. Lady Musgrave Experience tours allow customers a close view of these birds while respecting and protecting the borrows by strictly sticking to a path.
Lady Musgrave Experience works hard to protect this habitat and all the animals that live there, promoting to visitors to “take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.” Lady Musgrave Experience also does more hands-on work to protect the reef such as monitoring and reporting on the reef’s health, monitoring crown of thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, using special fuel that reduces waste and reduces water contamination and promoting responsible use of sunscreen when close to water.
Congratulations once again to Lady Musgrave Experience for achieving Advanced Ecotourism Certification and welcome to the Ecotourism Australia family!
For more information about Lady Musgrave Experience visit their website or their Facebook page.
[Pictures sourced from Lady Musgrave Experience website]