EcoDiver Training in Hawaii

I’ve been in Hawaii for two weeks now, helping a fledgling Reef Check Hawaii to get established. I haven’t actually done much training recently – or diving, come to that! But it’s been reassuring that it comes back quickly!

Diving here is interesting. The reefs are not as diverse as in Malaysia—not surprisingly, given that Malaysia is part of the Coral Triangle. But the water quality is great, and there are ample opportunities to spot mega fauna. Two days ago, a manta ray slid slowly past our team while we were doing surveys; today, a 4-metre tiger shark came to visit the team on a training dive!

The Goal of the EcoDiver Training in Hawaii

Our primary goal is to get a team of divers certified up to EcoDiver Trainer, so they can build a bigger team. That is going amazingly well, and the local team – Brad Giles, Rachel Yoder and Adam Florea, have been very passionate and committed to the training – which we are somehow doing around their regular working shifts in the dive centre that is supporting this effort. So early starts and long days all round!

They have an ambitious goal to set up a survey programme covering some 90 sites by the middle of next year, focusing on the main island (which is often referred to as “the big island” but is actually called Hawaii) but also covering some of the other islands.

Marine Conservation in Hawaii

Hawaii is home to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Hawaii and one of the largest in the world. It covers the Northwestern Hawaiin Islands. There is some monitoring going on at the other islands, mainly conducted by the Division of Aquatic Resources, which manages the state’s Marine Life Conservation Districts, which are the states MPAs. What RC Hawaii hopes to do is similar to what we are doing in Malaysia – getting volunteers involved as “citizen scientists” to provide more data on what is happening to the reefs around all the islands.

What is most interesting is the parallels between Hawaii and Malaysia. The threats to the reefs are the same – local threats such as pollution, over-fishing and impacts from tourism, and global threats such as climate change. There has historically been little involvement of local stakeholders in monitoring and management and the local indigenous population in Hawaii seems to be somewhat marginalised – sound familiar? But from what I have been told, they are keen to participate where possible – just as in our own islands in Malaysia.

Hopefully, this will be the start of a great partnership! I’m hopeful that I will be able to keep in touch with the team here, and share what we have learned about setting up a Reef Check operation in Malaysia – if nothing else so they can avoid the mistakes we made!!

Our gratitude to the Reef Check Foundation

Finally a quick word of thanks to Reef Check Foundation who helped to set this up, and who have done fund raising for it; and to Jack’s Diving Locker here in Kona, Hawaii, who have provided all the diving logistics for the training.

Good luck to the newest RC chapter – Reef Check Hawaii!

Next stop – to meet RC Dominican Republic and learn about their experience actually managing MPAs. After that – Cali, Colombia, to attend COP 16, the UN’s conference on biodiversity. As mentioned previously, it’s going to be a very interesting conference; COP 15 two years ago agreed biodiversity conservation targets; this time it’s about setting up the mechanisms and funding to make those targets real.

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