Tag: volunteer

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: Quiet joy

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

Three people diving over a coral reef
Reef and Reef Checkers

The last slates have been scrubbed clean, the transect lines coiled away, and the hum of the compressor has finally fallen silent. Our Reef Check surveys for 2026 have drawn to a close.

As grey clouds race across the horizon and our boat is rocked by waves and wind, our Reef Check findings leave us with a bittersweet feeling: the reefs are holding out better than we had dared to hope. Against the odds, the blue depths still pulse with life, displaying a stubborn resilience in the face of warming seas, overfishing, over-development and just too much human impact. It is a moment of quiet joy of an unexpectedly positive result.

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: Rhythm

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

Four people diving over a coral reef
Reef and Reef Checkers

We are now fully into our Reef Check rhythm, swaying side to side on our liveaboard, blue above and below, broken by gleaming sand, the odd palm tree and the relentless pace of resort overdevelopment all around.

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: Corallimorphs

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

A diver with a slate above a reef
Checking that reef along the transect line

One day later and almost everyone is now a Reef Check EcoDiver. Well done! So off we went to a site in the north of Kaalo Atoll to check on a reef that we had not looked at for over a decade.

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: Mind dump & stewardship

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

Group of people sitting in a liveaboard lobby
Teaching session

It’s day 2 of our coral reef conservation expedition to the Maldives. All bar one (whose flight was re-routed mid-air) are here and learning to distinguish reef substrate (such as hard coral, sponge, sand, silt, rubble, soft coral and more) as I type this. There will be more about fish, invertebrates and coral damage and disease – in and out of the water – as we go through this mind dump day.

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: Last year and Saturday

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

Two divers on a coral reef
Surveying a reef in 2025

As our 2026 team prepares to gather in Malé for the start of our 2026 expedition this Saturday, we have been reviewing the detailed findings from our 2025 survey season. Our 13th annual survey report highlights the complex realities facing coral reef conservation Maldives.

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Coral reef conservation Maldives 2026: 15th expedition year!

Update from our Maldives coral reef conservation expedition

Four divers, a reef and a white transect tape
A team surveying a reef along a 100 m transect tape

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.

Dr. Matthias Hammer giving a talk
Dr. Matthias Hammer
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Previews: Two new expeditions

  • Identifying coral reef refugia in Panamá (diving expedition, planned for Sep/Oct 2027)
  • Creating a biodiversity refugium on Laikipia Plateau, Kenya (planned for Jan/Feb/Mar 2028)

Biosphere Expeditions is planning two new expedition. Below are the details as know so far.

You can also register your interest below. Those who do, will get first notification when the expedition accepts sign-ups, five days before the expedition goes public.

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Conservation Travel: Ethical Volunteering’s New Frontier

Media release – 28 April 2026

Four people bent over a headlamp light at night, one of them has a small bat in his hands
Citizen scientists doing bat work at night in Malawi

As the 2026 travel season is in full swing, a fundamental shift is redefining the “adventure” in adventure travel. Moving beyond the passive observation of traditional safaris, a new generation of travellers is choosing conservation travel: a model where travellers swap binoculars for data sheets and camera traps.

In an era where biodiversity loss is increasingly linked to multi-faceted global threats, ethical wildlife volunteering has emerged as the most meaningful way to explore the planet. Leading this evolution since 1999 is Biosphere Expeditions, a non-profit organisation whose “citizen science” model has become the industry gold standard for transparency, scientific rigour, and ethical integrity.

Divers on a reef
Citizen scientists surveying a reef
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The moment conservation becomes personal: Stories highlighting the human heart of wildlife protection

Media release – 2 April 2026

Two people measuring and calming a sea turtle on a beach at sunrise
Two citizen scientists measuring and calming a sea turtle on a beach at sunrise

Around the world, ordinary people are stepping onto the frontlines of wildlife conservation. Not as tourists, but as citizen scientists, they help track species, collect critical data and support conservation of wild animals and places that would otherwise not be possible.

The new 2025 Annual Magazine from award-winning NGO Biosphere Expeditions brings these stories together, revealing the people behind global wildlife research and the real impact they are having in the field.

The Magazine celebrates the ‘Human Factor’. The volunteers, local communities and scientists whose lives have been touched by working on the frontlines of wildlife conservation.

Cover of the 2025 Annual Magazine "The Human Factor"
Cover of the 2025 Annual Magazine “The Human Factor”
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From Citizen to Top-Notch Science: Biosphere Expeditions Celebrates Recognition in ‘Nature Communications’, in Paper About the Status of Coral Reefs Worldwide

Media release – 17 February 2026

Biosphere Expeditions volunteers recording coral reef data in Musandam, Oman (c) Kelvin Aitken

17 February 2026 – Biosphere Expeditions, the award-winning wildlife conservation NGO, is proud to announce that citizen science data from its Maldives and Oman coral reef projects have been used and acknowledged in a recent peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Communications, one of the world’s leading scientific journals. 

The paper warns that ‘the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs are accelerating, with the near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems’.

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