OceansWatch recognises that a healthy and sustainable marine environment will serve the people that rely on it into the future.

Coral reefs are some of the most ancient and biologically diverse ecosystems that exist on earth they serve an important role to coastal communities as a source of seafood, to generate income from tourism and to provide a buffer against storms. Many reefs have already been destroyed and understanding the state of health of the rest is in its infancy.

OceansWatch supports its Marine Conservation vision through facilitating and initiating co-operative projects with the worlds yachting, diving and academic communities. It provides resources such as project lead yachts, educational resources, expertise and project management.

Our Marine Conservation Vision

Our vision is for there to be long term sustainable fisheries for coastal communities in developing countries and wider scale megafauna protection.

Our Marine Conservation Mission Statement

To work with sailors, divers and marine scientists to support the local communities in recognising the importance of the marine environment and helping them take measures leading towards increased sustainability.

Member activities

Most of the activities that we encourage and support our members in becoming involved in are monitoring programmes but we are always assessing other systems.

Achieving sustainable development, as identified by the Earth summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, requires wide scale geographical monitoring of the biodiverse eco-systems on the planet, as biodiversity is an irreplaceable natural resource and the foundation of a variety of benefits that are crucial to human well-being.

Scientists have been observing coral reefs since the time of Darwin. Many types of reef assessment methods exist, none of which are perfect, and all have advantages and disadvantages. Overall the different methods allow a more comprehensive image of what is going on.

The Monitoring surveys that OceansWatch members can become involved in can provide a valuable contribution to scientist's global understanding of the distribution and eventual changes of biodiversity patterns in any marine ecosystem. This can also provide an early warning system so that actions can be taken to mitigate the loss of these ecosystems.

These methods can be easily mastered by non-scientists, yet are robust enough to be used by experts. They represent a cost-effective system that can identify locations where more detailed monitoring may be required.

The marine conservation tools that our members work with are:

• Reef Check
• Earth Dive
• CoralWatch
• OBIS

More details for members in the Marine Conservation Toolkit

Established in 1996, the Reef Check Foundation is an international non-profit organization dedicated to marine conservation. Reef Check (RC) has received numerous international environment awards for its work including the Global Environmental Prize from CMAS, the World Underwater Federation in January 2000, the Chevron Award in August 2001 and the NOAA Environmental Award in December 2001. Internationally the Reef Check program, with its community-based monitoring protocol, is already active in over 80 countries and territories.

The goal of Reef Check is to conserve marine environments through monitoring, education, research and management.

The RC technique is designed to allow amateur divers to judge marine communities health. Information produced is simple, quantitative and, if carried out regularly, can be used to assess broad-scale general trends.

Reef Check monitoring system is widely used because it is practical, non-destructive, and relatively quick and easy.

Our next Reef Check training members courses are scheduled for Vanuatu in mid May and Tonga in late June.

Below is a map of OceansWatch's Reef Check transects for repeat monitoring, members are welcome to be involved in this.

View Larger Map

EarthDive

Earthdive is a revolutionary new concept in ‘citizen science’ and a global research project for millions of recreational scuba divers who can help preserve the health and diversity of our oceans.

At the heart of this unique research project is the earthdive Global Dive Log, which has been developed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre UNEP-WCMC and marine biologists from all over the world.

The Global Dive Log, is a unique database into which divers (and snorkellers) log sightings of key indicator species and human induced pressures. Observations of illegal trade in endangered species can also be recorded, which are then passed on to TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

In addition to being an international research project, earthdive is also an advocacy conduit for marine conservation. Each contributor's name is added to a petition demanding action from policymakers to help protect our oceans.

Through earthdive, sustained action can be taken in a global effort to monitor and conserve marine life on this planet.

CoralWatch is an organization built on a research project at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. They have developed a cheap, simple, non-invasive method for the monitoring of coral bleaching, and assessment of coral health. The Coral Health Chart is basically a series of sample colours, with variation in brightness representing different stages of bleaching/recovery, based on controlled experiments.

The most obvious sign that coral is sick is coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is the whitening of coral due to a loss of symbiotic algae living within the coral tissue. In healthy coral, algae supplies energy and provides colour. During bleaching events, coral expels the symbiotic algae from their tissue which changes the colour of the coral. As coral expels more algae the coral becomes lighter in color. This loss of the ‘nutrient factory’ in corals may lead to death of the coral or the coral may slowly recover.

Localised events of coral bleaching can be induced by a variety of environmental factors: increased or decreased water temperature, exposure to ultraviolet light, changes in salinity or exposure to chemicals. However, the mass bleaching that occurs over large geographical regions can be caused mainly by an increase in water temperature over extended periods of time together with increased level of ultraviolet light.

OceansWatch members can help the University of Queensland answer critical questions about coral bleaching and recovery patterns as well as the duration of bleaching events in order to discover and implement ways to protect coral reefs from drastic decline.

To obtain a colour chart and learn the OceansWatch's methodology for CoralWatch see .....

OBIS

OBIS was established by the Census of Marine Life program (www.coml.org). It is an evolving strategic alliance of people and organizations sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available over the World Wide Web. It is not a project or program, and is not limited to data from CoML-related projects. Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute to OBIS. OBIS provides, on an ‘open access’ basis through the World Wide Web:

In its inaugural year OceansWatch undertook successful marine monitoring projects in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. In May 2009 OceansWatch boats will be undertaking projects in Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea with other projects likely to be initiated as the year progresses. We will be working in the Caribbean and Asia in late 2009 or early 2010 with projects in Africa and the Indian ocean.

Seabird International

Seabirds are a vital part of the ocean's ecosystem. Many seabird populations are rapidly declining and are threatened with extinction. They face a wide range of threats, both on land and at sea, including being killed as bycatch in longline and trawl fisheries, predation and habitat loss. Global solutions are needed to protect seabirds that
spend much of their lives travelling vast distances across international waters.
In 1997, BirdLife International established the Global Seabird Programme
to support BirdLife Partners to:
? Promote the collaborative international action that is vital to arrest
seabird declines
? Advocate the conservation of seabirds at national, regional and global
levels
? Work directly with fishermen and other stakeholders to reduce seabird
bycatch and other threats to seabird populations.
More information on the Global Seabird Protection pdf.