What you’ll be doing

During your stay with ReefDoctor you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a range of science activities. Your choice will depend on our current area of focus and your wishes, but to give you an idea of some of the activities…

Underwater surveys
Almost everyone takes part in our underwater surveys. After training you’ll be diving on a regular basis, usually completing at least one survey dive per day, five days a week (often more, weather permitting).

All your dives will take place in the calm warm waters of the lagoon and on the exterior of the barrier reef where turtles, sharks, napoleon wrasse and humpback whales (from July to November) have been recorded.

After each survey dive you’ll identify what you’ve seen, record your data and enter the results in to our database, contributing to the monitoring of numbers and diversity of species at each of our survey sites.

At the end of each week you’ll help the science officers analyse this data and perhaps help turn basic information into posters, leaflets and presentations for locals or tourists.

Fisheries surveys
ReefDoctor has been completing surveys of the variety and quantity of fish species Ifaty fishermen catch for over a year now. The results of these surveys help us to understand Ifaty’s fishery, which is essential for successful management and protection of fish stocks for future generations.

Research assistants join local staff to meet fishermen on the beach and identify and measure their catches, or survey the stocks at the collection stations in Ifaty, which buy catches from the fishermen to sell on in bulk to regional collectors.

The results of the fisheries surveys are recorded in ReefDoctor’s database after each survey, and are then analysed to assist the Ifaty community in the management of their marine resources and coral reef (e.g. through the development of FADs, no-take zones or marine protected areas that incorporate regions of high ecological diversity), and to further regional and national studies of coral reef health and diversity.

Artificial habitats and protected areas
In addition to our general underwater surveys, we have a number of programmes that require ongoing monitoring. These projects have been developed in conjunction with the village to help improve fishing catches in a sustainable way, or to develop alternative incomes for the village.

At present we are working on three projects in this area: FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices), designed to take fishing pressure away from the degrading inner reef and yield improved catches; MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) designed to generate income from tourism for the benefit of the village; and artificial reefs that function as new inner lagoon fishing areas, which might help relieve fishing pressure from natural degrading reefs, or as a means of monitoring the development of marine ecosystems in artificial environments.

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