Six Senses Laamu Maldives is a resort blessed with natural beauty. With an iridescent turquoise lagoon, endless white sand beaches and a truly remarkable house reef rich, you can imagine we were very excited to be on our way there again. We have read so much about the new initiatives the Six Senses Laamu Team has implemented since our last visit and we were looking forward to learning more from the staff when we arrived. To be honest, one of my favorite aspects of our visits to the resorts is the ability to learn from the incredibly knowledge staff.

The Six Senses Laamu Maldives Underwater Initiative (‘MUI’) is an award winning marine conservation program initiated by Six Senses Laamu with its’ three main goals being marine research, guest education and community outreach. What we found astounding is that since the initiation of the program, by funding many plastic free initiatives, one of these initiatives for example is that 50% of all water sales at the resort’s restaurants are donated to buying water filters for local communities and these water filters sponsored by Six Senses eliminates the need for approximately 6 million plastic water bottles in the Laamu Atoll alone each year.  Six Senses Laamu has also led the initiative in the Maldives to promote the prohibition of removal of sea grass which was done for many years.  As a result of this initiative, islands are no longer experiencing the same levels of erosion they were previously experiencing and it is also protecting the endangered sea turtle population of the Maldives.

We were so fascinated to learn that Six Senses sponsors a local Women’s Development Program which employs local women to make reusable cotton bags for local island use, reducing plastic waste. Six Senses also has a number of Programs they have developed to support and educate the local Laamu community about sustainability, environmental conservation, gender equality and protection of their natural resources. The main goal of these programs is to have the local islands take over ownership for the programs and the responsibilities they entail which Six Senses can already see happening they told us.

With tourism being the number one income earner for the Maldives, the Government recognized early on how critically important it was for them to protect the very asset that they relied on.  It is so impressive to see resorts like Six Senses Laamu going so far to protect the environment, educate the tourists who come to this beautiful country and teach the locals how to carry this forward.  With tourism being such a critical contributor to the Maldives economy, educating the tourists who come here on how to properly behave around the marine animals, including coral is critical to preserving the natural environment and preserving their asset for future generations.   We were so impressed with the efforts made by Six Senses Laamu and we really look forward to the next time we visit.