Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition
This October, Biosphere Expeditions will run its 15th Maldives expedition. This continues our long-standing citizen-science project in the Maldives, focusing on coral reef health through hands-on volunteer expeditions. Since 2011, these marine surveys have been an important constant of local reef conservation, blending scientific rigour, citizen science and immersive adventure.
I am Matthias Hammer, founder and CEO of Biosphere Expeditions, and I will also be your expedition leader.
This year will be a special expedition indeed. It runs shortly after the publication of our Manifesto for a Troubled Planet and the profound changes this entails for the way we conduct our expeditions. I will tell you more about this on the expedition, straight after the introductions at the beginning.
The staff who make it all happen
Dr. Simon Harding from the UK will be our expedition scientist and we are very glad to have him back with us.
Also on the expedition – and I am absolutely delighted to be able to say this – will be Shaha Hashim, who first joined the expedition in 2014 as a local placement and has since been on a steep career path as a conservationist. So much so that Shaha is joining us this year with a view to take over the scientist role from 2027 onwards. This is exactly what we want: local empowerment and skills, rather than parachute science. As we go through triage, we want Shaha to tell us where local refugia can be built and where local communities need to be empowered. You can read more about Shaha’s career path here. More about this on the expedition too.
Apart from these members of staff, we look forward to being looked after by the capable crew of our liveaboard expedition base and of course to welcoming our citizen scientists – some returnees and some new to Biosphere Expeditions.
Dying reefs an ecological grief
The expedition is not a tourist trip. Our expeditions are a joint covenant between consenting adults, rather than a consumer travel product. As such we are independent of market imperatives and volume growth, which we reject along with the destructive hypercapitalist fallacy of endless growth on a finite planet.
On the expedition we will be documenting dying inner reefs. Another decade and they will probably be gone. This is the reality of our planet today. We accept this and will not tell you infantilising stories of “saving the planet”. Instead we want to provide a transparent, non-judgmental space where ecological sorrow is acknowledged rather than suppressed, ensuring grief is no longer paralysing, but transformed through radical honesty into positive action and targeted stewardship. This positive action and targeted stewardship is the identification of reef refugia and empowering people like Shaha and her communities to steer them through the planetary upheavals that lie ahead.
Outer reefs, fed by colder waters and not overfished or smothered by nutrients, are a candidate for such refugia. We will be looking at those too.
More about all this is in our expedition reports and scientific publications. Please make sure you swot up on them and Reef Check before you arrive. It’ll make the mind dump during the first 48 h of the expedition much easier to bear…
See you soon
Anyway, I digress and prattle on. I’m off to the Maldives today to sort out a few things ahead of you. I’ll be in touch again with updates from the ground soon.
Enjoy your preparations and safe travels.
Author: Matthias Hammer
Biosphere Expeditions was founded in 1999 by Dr. Matthias Hammer. Born in Germany, he went to school there, before joining the Army, and serving for several years amongst other units with the German Parachute Regiment. After active service he came to the UK and was educated at St Andrews, Oxford and Cambridge. During his time at university he either organised or was involved in the running of several expeditions, some of which were conservation expeditions (for example to the Brazil Amazon and Madagascar), whilst others were mountaineering/climbing expeditions (for example to the Russian Caucasus, the Alps or the Rocky Mountains). With Biosphere Expeditions he has led teams all over the globe. He is a qualified wilderness medical officer, ski instructor, mountain leader, divemaster and survival skills instructor. Once a rower on the international circuit, an amateur marathon runner and Ironman triathlete, he now enjoys less extreme pursuits such as writing and long-distance walks in the wild. More about Matthias.