Most people spend their teenage years discovering who they are. For Savannah Lehnert, sixteen was the year she found herself deep in the Amazon rainforest of Madre de Dios, Peru, working as a volunteer alongside scientists on a conservation expedition that would stay with her long after she returned home.
A father-daughter journey begins
When she joined Biosphere Expeditions with her father back in 2011, she became one of the youngest citizen scientists, but she was far from out of place.
Citizen scientists in action: Savannah and her father in the Peru Amazon
The beauty of Biosphere Expeditions teams is that they bring together people (or citizen scientists) from all walks of life and every stage of adulthood, united not by age or profession, but by a shared passion to protect wild animals and places.
‘I was very compelled by the adventure of visiting the Amazon and working with conservation biologists and other volunteers to protect endangered species in an incredible landscape.’
Darran Keogh came to Biosphere Expeditions as an expedition leader without a scientific background and left with a drive to pursue conservation through further education — a transformation that reflects the impact these expeditions can have, even for staff members.
Based in Ireland, Darran’s main job is ‘delivering and leading courses in the mountains.’ However, when he came across Biosphere Expeditions and applied for an expedition leader position, he was looking for added value; an opportunity to apply his existing skills in a different context – snow leopard volunteering seemed a good one.
For Savannah Schilling, one of the most unexpected and lasting impacts of her Biosphere Expeditions experience was the people.
In the middle of the Indian Ocean, with limited WiFi and a shared purpose, she found herself part of something rare — a group brought together not just by travel, but by a genuine commitment to understanding and protecting the natural world.
It was an experience that felt both grounding and energising.
She quickly realised she was surrounded by others dedicated to conservation and making the world a better place for all living things.
‘It made me realise how many people care about conservation and want to help in a meaningful way. It was truly inspiring.’ That sense of connection would go on to shape her entire experience. But when Savannah first arrived in the Maldives, she wasn’t sure what she would find.
I grew up surrounded by nature, conservation and expeditions. My father founded Biosphere Expeditions three years before I was born, so from a very young age, I travelled to places that most people only ever see in documentaries. Those experiences shaped how I see the world, how I travel and how I think about conservation.
My first expedition was in 2002, when I was just six months old, to Ukraine – which of course I don’t remember. But the expeditions I do remember had a huge impact on me.
In 2008 and 2010, when I was six and eight years old, I spent my summers in Namibia. I remember the vast landscapes, the people and, of course, the animals.
At just 27 years old, Tess Kneebone has already travelled extensively – from Costa Rica and Mexico to France, Morocco and across the United States. So, when a competition to join a marine conservation expedition in the Maldives with Biosphere Expeditions appeared on her Instagram feed, it was no surprise that she jumped at the opportunity.
What Tess could not have anticipated was just how deeply the experience would affect her: it reshaped her ambitions, strengthened her sense of purpose and introduced her to conservation in its most tangible form.
‘I’ve never felt more like myself than working on coral reef surveys with other ocean lovers,’ she reflects, her enthusiasm tangible.
For Loulou Ojjeh, Biosphere Expeditions played a pivotal role in her journey towards becoming an ecologist when she joined its Maldives expedition in 2025.
Despite having completed only 20 dives and questioning whether she was truly ready, Loulou quickly realised that she was far from being an anomaly. ‘Many participants shared similar doubts’, Loulou recalls finding out.
The El Niño effect this year has devastated coral reefs around the world, but the reefs of one island in Malaysia are fighting back.
Citizen scientists from Biosphere Expeditions have teamed up with Reef Check Malaysia to survey the coral reefs around the island of Tioman, off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia.
The group has been assessing the health of the reefs following the devastating rise in sea temperatures that happened in May this year. A temporary rise of 2 or 3 degrees Celcius, caused by this year’s El Niño event, has been causing corals all around the tropics to do something called ‘bleaching’, which can lead to the death of corals and then entire reefs.
A coral bleaches when it expels the symbiotic algae that usually live within it. These algae give the coral its colour, without these algae the transparent coral appears white (or bleached) as we see through the animal to its white calcium carbonate structure. Without the algae the animal also loses around 80% of its energy which is usually supplied by the algae photosynthesising sugars. This eventually leads to the death of the coral through starvation.
But the reefs around Tioman island have been taking algae back, and in the months since the reefs were 30 to 40% bleached, they have largely recovered, as the Biosphere Expeditions team has found.
The team, comprising citizen scientists from all over the world, also found reefs that were almost back to pre-bleaching states and which were generally healthy. So for these reefs the danger of bleaching has passed for now, but the threats of overfishing and pollution are still there. Very few larger predator fish were found during the surveys, indicating that fishing is still happening, despite Tioman being a Marine Protected Area.
The amounts of nutrient indicator algae growing on some of the reefs led the team’s scientist, Alvin Chelliah of Reef Check Malaysia, to speculate on the amount of sewage that may be ending up on the reefs from some of the island resorts. It is through working with the communities on the island, as Reef Check Malaysia does, that the threats to these reefs will be tackled and sustainability can be secured.
Pictures from the coral reef conservation expedition:
Thursday marked the last day of surveys in the 2013 Reef Check expedition to Tioman Island, Malaysia. We surveyed two new sites and added them to the list of sites that Reef Check Malaysia monitors around this beautiful place. We had a couple of divers out of the water on doctor’s orders with ear issues and other small problems, but those left carried on with the surveys and those not diving took on dry duties to the benefit of all.
Then yesterday, Friday, the last day of the expedition was eventful too. There was a hiccup with the boat and we had to rush to get three people back to Tioman for their flights. For the remaining two, the action didn’t stop there. In the evening we learned of a python, which had been caught nearby. Alvin and I raced off to see the animal and returned to Janne and Georgie with a 4.5 meter, 30 kg reticulated beauty, which we then went to some length relocating with the help of Rosie from the dive shop and the local taxi guy. A fitting end to a great conservation expedition on the sea and now also on land!
Thanks to all who attended and donated so much more than their cash to the daunting task of protecting the coral reefs of Tioman Island. I hope you have caught the expedition bug now. If you have, I look forward to meeting you again on some conservation errand sometime, somewhere on this beautiful planet of ours. Thanks again everyone and safe travels home!
Team 2 just completed their first day of official Reef Check surveys after an exhausting and hot few days of training and tests. Today’s temperature of nearly 38 degrees made the afternoon dive a welcome respite, even if the water they were working in was 31 degrees itself. Have a look at the videos and picture.
Training on dry land
Tomorrow we set out to sea to Tulai Island from where we plan to spend a couple of days exploring the islands in the vicinity of the anchorage there. After that we’re off to the other side of Tioman and out to Permandgil Island for a night to pick up a couple of sites we missed with the first team.
The second team for the 2013 Biosphere Reef Check expedition to Malaysia are all on deck now and officially briefed for duty. Again we have a week of training and land based research surveys before once again heading out to sea on the good ship Araliya for another week of ocean-based research around Tioman Island and the more remote islands beyond. Yesterday we hit the water for our important buoyancy workshop dive and who knows, we may even find the elusive “silver turtle” rumored to frequent the house reef at the Tioman Dive Centre… Team 1 will know what I mean…
