In a new ‘eco’ drive more and more staff members have joined our volunteer dive community to become informed and trained up as Reef Check Ecodivers.

Worldwide coral reefs are in danger from global warming and a myriad of other human induced threats. Coral Reef Monitoring is an important marine resource management tool that allows committed individuals the opportunity to collect scientific data to go into Reef Check’s worldwide database. Reef Check is the world’s only global non-profit eco-monitoring organization which tries to assess the threat of human induced stressors through monitoring changes over time.

On Koh Tao we have also teamed with local partner Marine Conservation Koh Tao, the marine branch of the Save Koh Tao group. In this way we are collecting data to be maintained and analysed locally but also distributed globally.

Survey data is submitted online to Reef Check International (www.reefcheck.org) and also provided to Marine Conservation Koh Tao’s Ecological Monitoring Program. (www.marineconservationkohtao.com)

Congratulations to the following people who participated in the latest round of training.
Advanced Open Water Diver Natalie Ricks,
OWSI Marius Karlsen
IDCS Richard Butler (Crystal Dive Staff Member)
MSDT Mark Freeman (Crystal Dive Staff Member)
MSDT Laura Bailey (Crystal Dive Staff Member)
MI Carsten Neuhaus (Crystal Dive Staff Member)

Laura Bailey counting invertebrates during a survey