In mid-March, Chien, 40, in Da Nang City, was seen one day carrying a plastic basket containing six individual grouper fish to the seashore near the coastal coral reef. When the basket touched the bottom, he gently opened the lid to let the groupers swim into the deep sea.

This is one of the main activities of SA SA, a marine life rescue group, led by Chien. Marine Life Rescue SA SA was established in 2017 after a sad memory.

That year, Chien's new friends found an injured dolphin that had drifted ashore. They called Chien for help and worked hard to rescue the fish. The group brought the fish to Nha Trang to take care of and named it SA SA.

However, the dolphin was lost from its mother and it was seriously injured, SA SA could not survive. The group decided that more needed to be done to rescue and take care of the marine environment. Finally, they decided to establish the SA SA Marine Life Rescue group.

SA SA is voluntary and not-for-profit. The group's main mission is to regenerate coral reefs in Vietnam and rescue marine life. SA SA's operating expenses come from members' own pockets.

Chien, who has many years of experience in researching the ocean, believes that re-generating coral reefs is the most sustainable way to protect the "magic" of the sea. 

Coral reefs are the home of aquatic creatures and a valuable treasure of precious medicinal herbs. They also affect fisheries.

As a group leader, Chien regularly updates knowledge and shows coral cultivation techniques to the group’s members. The everyday tasks of SA SA are cleaning the coral reefs along the beach and on the seabed and regenerating damaged reefs.

Chien said this is a non-paying job and it is dangerous for members, and few people in the country can do it. In order to clean and re-generate coral reefs, the members of the group have to dive under the sea for 7-8 hours a day at a depth of 8-10 meters.

The job requires deep knowledge, but all members of the group have vowed to proceed because they have a passion for the ocean. After many years of operation, the group has become well known in Vietnam for their activities of saving turtles, dolphins and whales.

“We can rescue 20-30 sea turtles each year. In the last three years, we have re-generated more than 50,000 sq m of coral reefs and 2 coral incubators using the most advanced technology in the world,” Chien said.

Saving marine creatures

In addition to reviving coral reefs, for many years, SA SA has returned many aquatic creatures to the sea. In general, Chien and the group’s members collect aquatic creatures at markets, from ship owners and fishing boats and then release them into the sea.

While collecting aquatic creatures, they repeatedly remind sellers of not catching creatures that have eggs, or small creatures.

They also provide information about marine species that are in their breeding season, so that fishermen avoid them, or set them free after accidentally catching them.

SA SA recently launched Feed the Ocean, a campaign that aims at "enriching the ocean".

The campaign was launched after the group members read a scientific report which said the health situation of Vietnam’s coastal creature ecosystem is very poor due to exploitation and lack of awareness about the need to protect creatures.

Previously, Chien and SA SA members only focused on releasing marine creatures which could help the development of coral reefs. But under the campaign, SA SA will also release other species, such as shrimp, crab and fish.

SA SA talks with fishermen about the need to protect marine species to raise awareness about sustainable exploitation of the creatures.

Before releasing any creature to the ocean, they carefully learn about the ecology of each species and bring them to a suitable natural habitat. 

Besides Da Nang, the group also runs a campaign on Phu Quoc Island. To date, the group has released hundreds of kilograms of crabs, and hundreds of thousands of tiger shrimp and fish.

Ha Nguyen