 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(October 2018) |
| Founder | Richard Vevers |
|---|---|
| Type | Environmental NGO |
| Purpose | Ocean conservation, communication and media, technology, environmentalism |
| Location |
|
Founder and CEO | Richard Vevers |
| Website | www |
The Ocean Agency is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to marine conservation. Currently, The Ocean Agency is focused on coral reef conservation. [1]
In 2012, The Ocean Agency launched the XL Catlin Seaview Survey to create an underwater Google Street View using the Seaview SVI and Seaview SVII 360-degree underwater cameras. [2] From 2013 to 2016, The Ocean Agency visited more than 26 countries and surveyed over 1,000 km of reef area, taking over a million 360-degree images with the cameras. [3]
In 2014, The Ocean Agency started recording the 3rd Global Coral Bleaching Event, which became the subject of the Netflix Original Documentary Chasing Coral . [4] The documentary premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix in July 2017. [5]
In 2016, The Ocean Agency ideated 50 Reefs — a global plan to save coral reefs. This initiative was launched in early 2017 with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Its aim was to bolster conservation action in key geographies identified as being less vulnerable to climate change and having the best chance of repopulating other reefs over time. [6]
The Ocean Agency was appointed to coordinate International Year of the Reef 2018 by the International Coral Reef Initiative, working in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme. [7] The Ocean Agency has launched a bank of coral reef imagery, Year of the Reef Image Bank, to supply imagery to media outlets, organizations and citizens who want to help promote the Year of the Reef. [8]
The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) is a United States National Marine Sanctuary located 100 nautical miles (190 km) offshore of Galveston, Texas, in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. It contains the northernmost coral reefs in the United States.
Danger Island is the westernmost and the southernmost island of the Great Chagos Bank, which is the world's largest coral atoll structure, located in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Nelsons Island or Nelson Island or Isle Legour is a small uninhabited island in the Great Chagos Bank, of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. As a protected nature reserve, access to the island is strictly restricted.
Marine conservation, also known as ocean conservation, is the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas through planned management in order to prevent the over-exploitation of these marine resources. Marine conservation is informed by the study of marine plants and animal resources and ecosystem functions and is driven by response to the manifested negative effects seen in the environment such as species loss, habitat degradation and changes in ecosystem functions and focuses on limiting human-caused damage to marine ecosystems, restoring damaged marine ecosystems, and preserving vulnerable species and ecosystems of the marine life. Marine conservation is a relatively new discipline which has developed as a response to biological issues such as extinction and marine habitats change.
Callum Michael Roberts is a British marine conservation biologist, oceanographer, science communicator, author and research scholar at the University of Exeter. He was formerly at the University of York. He is best known for his research and advocacy related to marine reserves and the environmental impact of fishing.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, is a biologist and climate scientist specialising in coral reefs, in particular bleaching due to global warming and climate change. He has published over 500 journal articles and been cited over 50,000 times.
Reef Check is an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the conservation of two reef ecosystems: tropical coral reefs and Californian rocky reefs. The Foundation is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States, but uses data from volunteer scuba diver teams in over 80 countries, ranging from Australia, Japan, to even Germany. It is the United Nations’ official coral reef monitoring program.
The National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium is the most notable museum and research institution for marine biology in Taiwan, which located in Checheng Township, Pingtung County, Taiwan.
Catlin Group Limited was a Bermuda-based specialty insurance and reinsurance company. Catlin operated six underwriting hubs worldwide and operated more than 55 offices worldwide. It owned the largest syndicate at Lloyd's of London, based on 2011 gross written premiums. Catlin shares were listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by XL Group plc in May 2015.
The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in each ecoregion. The Coral Triangle is located between the Pacific and Indian oceans and encompasses portions of two biogeographic regions: the Indonesian-Philippines Region, and the Far Southwestern Pacific Region. As one of eight major coral reef zones in the world, the Coral Triangle is recognized as a global centre of marine biodiversity and a global priority for conservation. Its biological resources make it a global hotspot of marine biodiversity. Known as the "Amazon of the seas", it covers 5.7 million square kilometres (2,200,000 sq mi) of ocean waters. It contains more than 76% of the world's shallow-water reef-building coral species, 37% of its reef fish species, 50% of its razor clam species, six out of seven of the world's sea turtle species, and the world's largest mangrove forest. In 2014, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that the gross domestic product of the marine ecosystem in the Coral Triangle is roughly $1.2 trillion per year and provides food to over 120 million people. According to the Coral Triangle Knowledge Network, the region annually brings in about $3 billion in foreign exchange income from fisheries exports, and another $3 billion from coastal tourism revenues.
The Cancún Underwater Museum is a non-profit organization based in Cancún, Mexico devoted to the art of conservation. The museum has a total of 500 sculptures, by a series of international and local sculptors, with three different galleries submerged between three and six meters deep in the ocean at the Cancún National Marine Park. The museum was thought up by Marine Park Director Jaime González Cano, with the objective of saving the nearby coral reefs by providing an alternative destination for divers. It was started in 2009 and officially opened in November 2010.
Dive Xtras is a manufacturer of diver propulsion vehicles (DPVs) or dive scooters in Mukilteo, Washington, United States.
Jason deCaires Taylor is a British sculptor and creator of the world's first underwater sculpture park – the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park – and underwater museum – Cancún Underwater Museum (MUSA). He is best known for installing site-specific underwater sculptures that develop naturally into artificial coral reefs, which local communities and marine life depend on. Taylor integrates his skills as a sculptor, marine conservationist, underwater photographer and scuba diving instructor into each of his projects. By using a fusion of Land Art traditions and subtly integrating aspects of street art, Taylor produces dynamic sculptural works that are installed on the ocean floor to encourage marine life, to promote ocean conservation and to highlight the current climate crisis.
Organizations which currently undertake coral reef and atoll restoration projects using simple methods of plant propagation:
The Seaview SVII is an underwater camera designed by the Catlin Seaview Survey team, intended to photograph coral reefs to provide visual documentation of a reef's health. The camera is designed to be controlled by a diver in shallow waters, and is propelled at a constant slow speed by a propeller mounted near the rear of the camera. Only two SVIIs are currently in existence. The cameras were used by the Catlin Seaview Survey and Google to create Google Ocean, a means of displaying underwater images using Google's existing Street View platform.
The Catlin Seaview Survey, later renamed the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, was a major scientific expedition which commenced in September 2012, whose aim was to document the composition and health of coral reefs worldwide. Specifically, the survey aimed to "carry out a rapid assessment of the current state of coral reef systems and to make this scientific record publicly available for scientists worldwide to use". The survey was sponsored by the Catlin Group until the survey ended when the Catlin group ended sponsorship. The original team created a film, chasing coral and a new, global initiative known as 50 reefs.
St. Crispin's Reef is an elongate outer-shelf coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Reef Life Survey is a marine life monitoring programme based in Hobart, Tasmania. It is international in scope, but predominantly Australian, as a large proportion of the volunteers are Australian. Most of the surveys are done by volunteer recreational divers, collecting biodiversity data for marine conservation. The database is available to marine ecology researchers, and is used by several marine protected area managements in Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa and the eastern Pacific.
Ruth Deborah Gates was the Director of the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology and the first woman to be President of the International Society for Reef Studies. Her research was dedicated to understanding coral reef ecosystems, specifically coral-algal symbiosis and the capacity for corals to acclimatize under future climate change conditions. Doctor Gates is most accredited with looking at coral biology and human-assisted coral evolution, known as super corals, as notably seen in the documentary Chasing Coral, available on Netflix.
Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) is a partnership between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) agencies, established in 2000. The program is a multidisciplinary approach, initiated by the NOAA, to managing and understanding coral reef ecosystems through research and the publication of data to support relevant partners involved in coral reef restoration.