Award-winning, non-profit and ethical wildlife conservation volunteering. Advancing citizen science and conservation since 1999 – for nature, not profit.
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.
Wildlife tourism is everywhere. From whale watching and safaris to volunteering with animals abroad, experiences involving wildlife have become a major part of global travel.
At the same time, the term ethical wildlife tourism is used more loosely than ever, often without much clarity about what it actually means.
Most travellers genuinely want to do the right thing. They want to support conservation, avoid harm, and travel more responsibly.
But when every operator claims to be “eco”, “sustainable” or “ethical”, it can be hard to tell the difference between meaningful conservation work and well-marketed exploitation.
Continue reading “What Is Ethical Wildlife Tourism (and How to Do It Right)?”
Shaha Hashim is a pioneer in the conservation movement in the Maldives. Her passion started at a young age when she ‘was lucky enough to be selected for the school snorkelling club where I witnessed the vibrant beauty of the corals before the 1998 bleaching event devastated over 90% of them.’
Many corals have grown back since and Shaha never lost her dedication to them. In 2014 Shaha joined Biosphere Expeditions, an international non-profit citizen science organisation, which supercharged her conservation career.
We are delighted to once again collaborate. with Dr. Alan Lee as the expedition scientist. After successful expeditions with him to the Peru Amazon from 2011 to 2016 and South Africa from 2015 to 2017, we will be back with him in his native South Africa on an expedition entitled “Much more than just leopards: Surveying biodiversity in the Cape Floral Kingdom of the fynbos mountains of South Africa.”
This expedition will focus on documenting biodiversity in the western Baviaanskloof wilderness area, with a particular focus on threatened and elusive Endangered mammals such as the riverine rabbit and Cape leopard, as well as birds and other fauna recorded through Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcount (CAR) transects. The work supports long-term monitoring obligations within the Cape Floral Kingdom (fynbos), a UNESCO World Heritage Site renowned for its exceptional biodiversity.
Continue reading “South Africa: Expedition with Dr Alan Lee returning in 2026”
‘I wanted to have an impact on protecting nature,’ says Angelika Krimmel from Germany, reflecting on what drew her to her first expedition with Biosphere Expeditions.
That first experience was in 2016, studying whales and dolphins in the Azores. It wasn’t long before Angelika found herself coming back again and again – to Slovakia in 2017 to monitor lynx, bear and wolf; to Kyrgyzstan in 2019 and 2024 for snow leopard research; and to Kenya in 2023 for African biodiversity conservation.
Each project offered something unforgettable. “After a week with the whales, you think nothing can top the first sight of one. But then a curious sperm whale swam alongside our boat, jumped three times and looked straight into our eyes. That look went directly to my heart.”
Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition
We have found some hope in the gloom. The last reef we assessed, was – in the words of Simon, our expedition scientist – “what a reef should look like”. Great coral cover, quite a few fish, almost no bleaching and very little coral disease. So the expedition ended on a high, as well as some outstanding karaoke, especially from the crew, who had some impressive dance moves in store.
In between the weather tried to thwart us, but we are undeterred, dodging and weaving the squalls, laughing at the sheets of rain and delighting in the sunshine.
We checked lots of reefs like clockwork. And this is exactly what makes an expedition: a journey with a purpose. Our purpose was assessing reef health, revisiting sites and continuing to add to what is now an impressive 12-year database.
Thank you, expeditioners – none of this would exist without you. We hope we also brought some clarity to your own purpose and thinking during what was an all-round very successful expedition.
Continue reading “Maldives: Hope”Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition
Group 2 is now also qualified – well done – and checking those reefs.
The stories are as mixed as has been the weather. There are some quite healthy reefs and some that are sick.
Fish are scarce, especially grouper, because there is immense fishing pressure due to (over)tourism and a very active grouper fishery that sells them off as food fish, mainly to Hong Kong as live fish for restaurant aquariums there.
Continue reading “Maldives: Sickness & Health”Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition
Here we are back again with a smaller, but equally keen group 2.
The weather has turned and it’s more windy, greyer and rainy now. But underwater it’s wet anyway.
We’ve done our check-out dive and are well into our training sessions now. Lectures, pointy dives and fish test today. The proof will be in the pudding.
Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition
Group 1 has checked all the reefs on its schedule, well done!
All were repeat surveys to track reef health and development over the years, one of the great advantages of citizen-scientist-funded expeditions, which can fund projects sustainably and reliably for many years (since 2011 in the case of the Maldives), generating long-term datasets that result in many insights and scientific publications.
None of this would happen without the many, many citizen scientists over the years who come to fund and help with this research and conservation work. Thank you!
Continue reading “Maldives: Stable recovery”Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition
We’re in the groove now and checking those reefs like clockwork – well done team 1.
We moved to Alifu Dhaalu (South Ari) atoll and studied a couple of sites there, as per our schedule. They were outer sites and coral cover was unchanged from when we visited them last in 2023 (still few fish, as has been the case for more than a decade now – they are just being overfished). The good coral cover, however, is positive news, showing some resilience.
Continue reading “Maldives: Mantas and corals”
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