The majority of surf tourism in the Mentawai Islands is by charter boat where travelers never actually step foot on land and interact with the local community. While some might argue this is a good thing for the local people, you also can argue that this lack of cross-cultural interactions means local people do not benefit economically or inter-culturally from the wave of tourism. 

 

Coast 2 Coast spent one week with the local fishing community of Mapadegat and facilitated an audiovisual workshop with the young groms of A Liquid Future. As part of our workshop, we painted together the first mural in the community (designed by the local kids), participants learned how to take photos (underwater, on the beach, and in the community), and played music, surfed, and fished. We learned about the issues facing the community from the rise of unsustainable tourism and negative consequences of climate change. This video is a summary of our time in the Mentawai and is meant as a call to positive action to facilitate more opportunities for grassroots fishing communities to speak up and out for their rights to protecting their livelihoods.