Blue Ventures: Can you Dive to Save Madagascar?

Image composition of Blue Venture Divers and local programs working with local communities

Madagascar is about to go deep into a Blue Venture and you could help. Responding to our Global situation, Blue Ventures, WWF, Universities, Experts and the Government of Madagascar signaled to new Ocean Priorities. 

On April 12 Blue Ventures made an International Call for anyone -diver or no diver to join their Volunteer Expedition in Madagascar. 

Linking Tourism and Conservation reported that Madagascar’s President Hery Rajaonarimampianina placed marine management high on the agenda. 

“What if tourism could save the world’s protected areas?” Linking Tourism and Conservation asks. The President of Madagascar met with conservationists at the University of Cambridge, Blue Ventures representatives and representatives of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International and the IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature. After the meeting press reported that Madagascar will be announcing a new Marine Protected Area MPA at the Africa Forum of Blue Solution which will take place during May 31 to June 3.

But not all is good news for Madagascar... 

Phys reported on April 20 that NASA´s Satellite tracked and traced Tropical Cyclone Fantala which opened its eye wide north of Madagascar. 

"Madagascar is one of the ten countries most vulnerable to natural disasters. A quarter of the population –approximately five million people live in areas highly prone to cyclones, floods or drought," the World Food Program WFP explains. 

Natural Disasters, lack of conservation of natural barriers which protect the island from natural disaster, environmental degradation and impact on local fisheries affect the population.

An MPA and conservation actions would conserve and restore natural barriers -coral reefs and mangroves against Cyclones and Storms and prevent further degradation of the environment. 

Blue Ventures works to "rebuild tropical fisheries with coastal communities". Rebuilding Fisheries can put an end to poverty and hunger and malnutrition and increase health. 

"In 2015, (in Madagascar) a joint assessment by the Ministry of Agriculture, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO and WFP in eight disaster-prone areas found 1.9 million people to be food insecure, more than half of them in the semi-arid southern regions; 665,000 people were severely food insecure. Madagascar has the world’s fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition, which affects almost half of all children under five," World Food Program says. 

During the meeting the President of Madagascar Rajaonarimampianina “emphasised his belief in placing local communities and sustainable development at the heart of biodiversity conservation”. 

Blue Ventures assures that anyone can help Madagascar. “Based in the remote fishing village of Andavadoaka on Madagascar’s southwest coast, our dive expeditions offer volunteers from around the world a unique opportunity to get involved with Blue Ventures’ marine research and community conservation work,” the organization calls. 

The Volunteers who do make it to the island will assist the International team of marine biologists, field scientists and sociologists in the surveying one of the most spectacular ecosystems of the Indian Ocean.

Healthy coral reefs and health food webs lead to healthy fisheries. Blue Ventures needs to survey the reef and the life within first to be able to move to seconds steps of conservation and management.

Blue Ventures insists that anyone can come “whether a dive novice, experienced diver, budding scientist or newcomer to the field of marine conservation you are welcome!” 

"We’d arrived in southern Madagascar in a town called Toliara, where our Blue Ventures expedition officially kicked off! It began with an epic eight hour journey to one of the most remote locations anyone's likely to visit. This part of Madagascar is so amid it’s hard to imagine anyone or anything managed to live here, but they do...we arrived to our new home -by a small fishing village called Andavadoaka, which is next to a lagoon protected from the ocean by some fringing and submerged coral reefs, which is the vital resource for the local villagers. It was worth the effort of the long journey, with our wooden hut overlooking a white sandy beach and turquoise blue sea, and thankfully there was to be a constant breeze (well most of the time),” a Blue Ventures Team Member blogged out early this year and continued...

“We were to settle into village life with our weeks submerged with marine research and community conservation work. We are currently six weeks into our ten week stay here, and all of our fellow volunteers (and new found friends) have now left us, and we are waiting to meet the next batch of volunteers who we will dive and live with for the next month. This is a diving expedition so obviously a massive part of our time here is spent surveying one of the Indian Ocean’s most extensive coral reefs! It’s a tough job but someone had to do it!” 

The organization has been on the ground in Madagascar for more than 10 years and one if its newest report reveals that when the community gets involved in conservation results are extremely positive. 

Their new study says that marine turtle nesting in Madagascar has decreased and the community based monitoring could play a vital role in protecting the nesting sites. Blue Ventures adds that despite Madagascar being an important turtle foraging location of the Western Indian Ocean the community of turtles and their relationship with the environment is still poorly documented. 

With researchers from the Exeter University Blue Ventures not only studied the turtle community and trends in Madagascar but also reveal how a long-term community based turtle nesting program would positively impact the Turtles. 

Turtles conservation was focused mainly in the Barren Isles -archipelago of 10 islands off the west coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel. This area is where Blue Ventures began its work more than 10 years ago and is today believed to home the healthiest reefs of Madagascar. 

Blue Ventures adds that their work in Madagascar is part of the Global Vision. Working in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature and building relationships with WWF International and others they aim strictly to “support local communities in securing healthy fisheries”. 

“We’re delighted and thrilled to be embarking on a new journey with WWF. At a time of unprecedented threats to our oceans and the human populations that depend upon them for food and income, there has never been a more critical need to identify, and scale up, models that mobilise community support for conservation,” Dr Alasdair Harris, Blue Ventures Executive Director says. 

Last Year Madagascar already committed to triple coverage of the Country's Marine Protected Areas. Mangroves and reef and environment survey are key in the continuation of the expansion of the policy of the government. Blue Ventures is well connected, on the ground and operating smoothly. If you want to dive in Madagascar perhaps there is no better organization to do it with today other than Blue Ventures. 

“During underwater research dives you collect critical marine inventory data, which feed into published reports and scientific papers about the state of Madagascar’s coral reefs. You will work with local communities, non-governmental organisations and marine institutes towards implementing and maintaining sustainable local environmental management plans. Thereby you contribute to the further development of Blue Ventures’ efforts to support coastal communities in marine conservation,” Blue Venture assures.

More than 10 years ago Blue Ventures started a small program in the Mozambique channel. There they started working with a local fishery. The program soon went viral and was adopted by many fishing communities of Madagascar. 

“Crucially, this sparked interest in more ambitious coastal management efforts, leading to the creation of the country’s first Locally Managed Marine Area LMMA  governed by a small network of fishing villages,” Blue Ventures explains. 

“Since then, this temporary fishery closure model has gone viral along thousands of kilometres of Madagascar’s coastline, spawning a grassroots marine conservation revolution with 64 more LMMAs established to date. Today, 11% of the island’s seabed is managed by communities, for communities,” Blue Ventures experience adds.

If you already evaluated the risks and dangers of diving in Madagascar´s Paradise and feel it is worth it but you are still not convinced whether you will be in hands of the most experienced organization then Blue Ventures kicks it...

“We’ve created the largest Locally Managed Marine Areas LMMAs in the Indian Ocean, proven new models for community-led fisheries management, built sustainable aquaculture businesses, and developed effective approaches for integrating community health services with marine conservation. Our award-winning ecotourism social enterprise provides year-round sustainability and match funding to enhance the impact and stability of our field programmes. By demonstrating that effective marine conservation is in everyone’s interest, we are striving for impact at scale. We aim to reach at least three million people across the world’s tropical coastal regions by 2020!”

“Blue Ventures does magnificent work, helping local communities and offering extraordinary volunteering opportunities that you'll remember for the rest of your life,” Simon Reeve of the BBC's Indian Ocean serie assures.