Get your PADI Advanced Open Water and PADI Coral Reef Research Diver qualifications as a member of an expedition team working on critical marine conservation
This volunteer program is especially suitable for:
Travel to the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean as a member of an expedition team and work on critical marine conservation projects amongst the beautiful islands of the Seychelles.
You will contribute towards various conservation-related surveys aimed at providing data to the local government on coral reef research, fish, and invertebrate surveys and assist with the development of an environmental education and awareness program as well as marine plastic pollution cleanups and surveys.
You will spend the majority of your time on this expedition scuba diving and as such you need to be qualified to at least PADI Open Water, or equivalent. For non-divers wishing to attend, we can recommend local dive centers that will help you qualify before your intended start date.
For all participants in Mahe you will receive the following training:
- Coral Watch
- This is a global coral monitoring methodology all volunteers can get involved with. It is separate to our main study focus with Seychelles National Parks Authority, SNPA. It is not required training but an additional presentation offered to volunteers and interns who stay for longer and have more time available.
- Crown-of-Thorns Star Fish Removal
- This is a species of starfish that is harmful to both humans and coral. You will learn how to remove these from the reef safely. It is not required training but an additional presentation offered to volunteers and interns who stay for longer and have more time available.
- Plastic Pollution & other Trash
- Learn about the effect of waste on the ocean and what we can do about it. It is not required training but an additional presentation offered to volunteers and interns who stay for longer and have more time available.
- Hazards of the Reef
- Learn which creatures pose a risk while in the water, best practices to avoid injury, and what to do if injured.
- Introduction to Coral Watch
- Includes an explanation of what a coral reef is, its importance, how it is formed, and how this ecosystem works.
- Threats to the Reef
- Learn what are the natural and man-made issues threatening the survival of the reefs.
- Megafauna
- Learn to identify different types of megafauna, larger sea creatures, you might see on a dive near Mahe. You will be asked to also monitor their numbers on your dives.
- Coral, Fish, or Invertebrates Workshops
- A few weeks before arrival on the base, you will be assigned to monitoring either coral, fish, or invertebrates. This includes several presentations to introduce you to the specific species.
- Species Specific Marine Survey
- Once participants are comfortable with identifying the species on site, they will be trained on the different techniques used to monitor these species underwater.
- PADI Advanced Open Water Certification (AOW)
- 5 specialized dives are required to gain this qualification, those we offer include the Boat Dive, Underwater Navigation, Underwater Naturalist, Deep Diver, and Peak Performance Buoyancy. A knowledge review is also required.
- PADI Coral Reef Research Diver Distinctive Specialty
- This is a distinctive specialty unique only to GVI, created in collaboration with PADI. It provides instruction on the different types of reef monitoring available, along with certain skills which are needed to ensure that you are comfortable using monitoring equipment such as tape measures and quadrats and that there is no damage done to the reef while you navigate around the site.
- Survey Specific Buoyancy Training
- Learning how to control your buoyancy to ensure that you do not accidentally damage the reef while conducting research.
- Emergency Oxygen Therapy Orientation
- All volunteers are taught how to provide oxygen to divers in varying states on consciousness.
This is subject to change and some of these trainings will be provided online 8 weeks prior to your program start date.
Health & Hygiene:
The work we contribute to across the globe remains important and new measures allow our participants to continue to join our programs and continue impacting positively on their world and the communities we work with. Changes to our existing protocols have been made by our health and hygiene team to strengthen our health and hygiene protocols and ensure that international standard safeguards are in place to protect our participants, staff and host communities. Please inquire for more information on the protocols.
Volunteers will be allocated fish, coral or invertebrates as part of coral reef monitoring and we monitor all these topics at our 24 sites over the North-West coast of Mahe. Volunteers allocated to Fish will spend their daily dives collecting data on abundance/biodiversity, which helps to assess overall recovery of fish life on the reef. - Coral - for the first half of the year we monitor coral cover of our sites, and in the second half of the year we monitor the recruits (juvenile) corals that are growing on our sites, both of which give us a better idea of the health and diversity of the reef.
Invertebrate volunteers focus on the diversity and abundance of different species found around the Seychelles.
Incidental Sightings is something that everyone gets involved with on a daily basis, we compile a species list and maintain a record of the daily occurrences of different marine creatures at the various dive sites. This data is passed onto OBIS Seamap which is an online database to see populations of different big species around the world.
All volunteers will also get involved with monthly dives to clean up the reef - Dive Against Debris (DAD) which the data goes to Project AWARE who are monitoring the levels of rubbish that is being found on dive sites around the world.
Everyone will conduct a separate monitoring technique of Coral Watch, this is a worldwide coral monitoring methodology which looks into the levels of bleaching that is occurring on corals.
Our final project that we have available to all volunteers is our coral restoration project, Volunteers will be able to assist with collecting new fragments, cleaning our nursery, or transplanting our fragments to a new site, what you get involved with depends on what time of year you are on base.