Marapa is one of the most active and effective NGOs in the São Tomé archipelago, and the only one working on the marine environment.
A former PPI beneficiary in 2005-2006, and with funding from RAPAC, MARAPA established the Jalé Ecolodge in the south of the island, at Porto Alegre, whose restructuring is now being funded by ECOFAC; this lodge has achieved strong success on the tourism market over the years and serves as an important tool for monitoring nesting activity and the state of the marine ecosystems in the south of the island.
In 2007, the NGO set up, with Canadian and SCAC funding, an ecomuseum called Casa Tatô in Morro Peixe, in the north of the island — a small ecotourism facility integrated into a marine turtle monitoring programme, and a reference point for tourists wishing to observe these animals’ nesting.
Finally, in 2011, MARAPA began, with CARPE funding and scientific collaboration from the Association for Marine Sciences of the University of Lisbon, whale-watching activities — a photo-identification monitoring programme called Operaçao Tunhâ — currently limited to the north-western coast of the island.
This project should help expand the programme’s scope of action to cover the entire coastline of the island, in order to improve knowledge of cetaceans and increase and diversify income for the Casa Tatô and the Jalé Ecolodge, by offering tourists whale-watching activities.
Two double-outrigger prao-type boats will be built and equipped for the programme’s needs, and made available to diversify the range of excursions offered, while contributing to ongoing research efforts.
