Moalboal, Philippines, July 2013. They are 16 divers, and they are adventurers! Not those who take foolish physical risks, but those who leave the cozy shores of their habits to risk their gaze – and their mind – towards new horizons, new discoveries…Diving… special« Okay, so, as planned, 4 divers descend to 20 meters; one pair goes to the left, the other to the right. You do 4 transects* of 5 minutes at 20 meters, then on your return, 4 transects at 5 meters. The same principle applies to the other two pairs, but your first 4 transects will be at 15 meters, then your return at 10 meters. »
Commando operation of seasoned scientists? No, rather a beautiful adventure off the beaten path for vacationing divers. If they participate in this mission to study fish from the Peau-Bleue association, supervised by scientist Patrick Louisy, it’s both to learn and discover reef fish and to contribute to local initiatives for marine environment management and protection.
* To do a transect is to cover a strip of seabed with a constant width (here, 5 meters) to count the fish.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it…The scientific mission of these volunteer divers was twofold. First, it was about characterizing the fish communities on a site by inventorying all the species in the different reef habitats. Over 300 meters of reef, they thus accumulated more than 400 hours of dives and recorded 397 species of fish! They, of course, received training on species identification, but can you imagine the intensity of the debriefings, the work of identification from photos, the confrontations of observations… Very busy evenings!
Then, these now seasoned observers undertook another scientific challenge: comparing the fish populations between 3 sites with different levels of protection. They demonstrated a positive effect of protection on the diversity and size of reef fish.An investment, benefitsBut why, when you are an amateur diver, bother during your vacation to do things this complicated? Because you’re not bothered at all!
You learn a lot about reef life, but more importantly, you discover you’re capable of studying it, of creating your own knowledge. You experience a fantastic team adventure, with other participants as well as with local dive guides, embarked on the same journey. You feel useful to science, contributing to tangible results that, day after day, bring new information. And you lend a helping hand to local communities and the preservation of their environment… As a direct consequence of this first mission in 2013, the municipality of Moalboal used the final scientific report to obtain official status from the government as a marine biodiversity hotspot in the Philippines.
The species encountered during the survey dives:
Mission Moalboal 2017The Peau-Bleue association is going back on a mission to Moalboal from July 9 to 22, 2017, to measure the changes in marine biodiversity since 2013 using the same methods. There are still a few spots left. Do you feel the soul of an adventurer? Find information about the Fish Watch mission.To learn more about the Moalboal 2013 mission (and access the scientific report).
Patrick Louisy