Become certified to conduct your own Reef Check surveys and take an active role in conserving your favorite coral reefs.
This course is designed to teach you everything you need to know to conduct full scale Reef Check surveys.
In this program you will learn all about the globally standardized Reef Check methodology as well as how to identify key indicator fish, invertebrates and substrates selected by Reef Check for global monitoring and conservation of coral reefs!
This course will allow you to join the Reef Check monitoring team and assist in underwater surveys around the world. We are fortunate here on Koh Tao that we have several permanent transects that we regularly survey.
Reef Check is the most complete coverage of the marine ecosystem available in a short course today. You will discover a whole new world you had previously overlooked simply because no one has made you aware of it.
Reef Check partners with companies like OceanWatch, which sails the South Pacific assisting indigenous cultures to develop better ways to fish and manage their local environments.
The oceans are in danger, especially coral reefs and survey teams like Reef Check provide invaluable data to help manage and monitor resources. Without this information, how do we know they are changing? Scientists and politicians want hard data to make informed decisions.
Prerequisite: Advanced Open Water Diver & Perfect Buoyancy Specialty (SSI or equivalent) If you are not yet a scuba diver, we can conduct this training before starting this course.
Requirements: Participant is comfortable using mask, fins and snorkel or is a certified advanced scuba diver.
After completion of the course students can participate in some of our other conservation dives with our ECO team conducting coral research / monitoring corals. Trainers will be testing and building on students knowledge about the aquatic realm on every dives.
We regularly conduct CoralWatch dives which is a non-invasive tool to quantify coral bleaching and monitor coral health. Data is collected, transferred into a global database by using a simple App. All data is publicly available to enable you to compare the condition of different reefs at any one point in time. A great monitoring and education tool to increase awareness of reef health and encourage behavior change towards a sustainable , low carbon future. Other conservation dives include predation removal, coral nursery maintenance, fish / invertebrate surveys and water testing.
