Marine Conservation
Throughout the year we undertake various conservation projects along side our coral restoration work. These vary from ghost net removals in the N-E monsoon period, where they drift over to the Maldives in the currents, to Crown of Thorns removal and underwater cleanups.
We also work with volunteers, interns and universities to facilitate their own marine based projects, the boundaries of which are huge but has included reef monitoring, seagrass monitoring and collecting biodiversity data.
See our current projects below!
Our Current Conservation Projects
Dive Against Debris:
Friday afternoons are for Dive Against Debris, we meet at our dive shop at 3pm for a short presentation & briefing before gearing up and embarking on a clean up dive to one of our Adopt The Blue sites. After the dive we work together to sort through and survey the trash collected, recycling what we can and submitting the data to PADI AWARE. This event can also go towards earning your PADI Dive Against Debris Specialty, ask us for more details.
CoralWatch Coral Health Surveys:
CoralWatch is a citizen science initiative dedicated, through volunteers, to monitoring the health of corals around the world. We have 5 CoralWatch survey sites around Naifaru which we monitor on a weekly basis. This event starts with a short presentation and briefing from one of our team before we enter the water and snorkel along one of our reefs, collecting data along the way. This data is then submitted to the CoralWatch global database to be used by scientists worldwide. This event can also go towards earning your PADI CoralWatch Coral Health Chart Specialty, ask us for more details.
REEF Fish Abundance Surveys:
Utilising the REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) Volunteer Fish Survey Project, our weekly surveys start with a FISH ID presentation and briefing on how to complete your own fish survey. Once we understand the theory, we will go out to the reef, surveying one of our local sites and collecting data which will be submitted and used in one of the largest marine life databases in the world. This event can also go towards earning your PADI Fish ID Specialty, ask us for more details.
Crown of Thorns (COTS) Removal:
Our house reef and surrounding reefs have recently had an outbreak of Crown of Thorns starfish. In small numbers COTS are a healthy and natural part of a reef ecosystem, however during an outbreak they can rapidly strip a reef of up to 90% of healthy coral.
We are actively removing COT’s from our reefs and offer training to join our team is COTs removal dives - contact us for more information.
Beach Cleans:
The Maldives has a huge trash problem, but with new initiatives, like Parley Maldives, there is hope for clean beaches and clean oceans!
Each week, along with Atoll Volunteers, we walk one of our local beaches and clean up the trash we find along the way. The rubbish is then sorted and any plastic is separated into Parley bags which will be collected and recycled. This event could be a beach on Naifaru or on one of the uninhabited islands nearby.
Megafauna Identification:
We are lucky to see an abundance of megafauna (turtles, sharks, rays, dolphins & whales) in Lhaviyani Atoll on snorkels, dives, boat trips and even from shore. We record all the megafauna we see and try to take identification images when possible and non-invasive to the animals. We then share this data with Manta Trust and other local and global NGO’s to track movements, abundance and behaviours.
Contact us for more information about megafauna identification training.
Conservation Training
Working closely with the local NGO, Atoll Marine Centre, and their on-site Marine Biologists we specialise in Coral Reef Restoration and Conservation training. A Reef Guru partner facility, we teach the practical sessions for both the Restoration Diver and Conservation Diver courses as well as a 2-4 week Coral Restoration Volunteer Program with Atoll Volunteers.
We also offer the full range of PADI AWARE courses: PADI AWARE Specialist, Dive Against Debris, Shark Conservation, Coral Reef Conservation, Peak Performance Buoyancy and Fish ID - which we teach using the REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) curriculum - as well as training for the CoralWatch Coral Health Chart specialty, Whale Shark Awareness and our distinctive Sea Turtle Awareness specialty. Plus a unique, conservation-orientated, Divemaster Internship too.
We are proud to be a PADI Eco Centre, actively promoting marine biodiversity and community resilience by addressing our ocean’s global challenges.
We are dedicated to engaging in direct conservation action including citizen science, policy advocacy, and education and work hard to reduce the environmental footprint of our operations, embedding sustainability as a core business value.
