DIVE HAPPY

Scuba Diving Conservation Vacations are becoming more and more popular - there are numerous organisations that help divers get involved in protecting and understanding the underwater environment across Asia Pacific and the world

Earlier today I found a magazine article about Madagascar, somewhere I've long wanted to go. It prompted me to look up a company called Blue Ventures, with whom I nearly went to spend 3 months in a remote part of Madagascar doing scuba diving conservation work a few years ago. That never happened, for various reasons, but I was pleased to see Blue Ventures is going strong - they have their own frequently updated blog as well as their official website.

Scuba Diver volunteers typically go abroad for anywhere between a month to three months. They pay for all their own flights and a significant fee for being at the dive site - usually a two to five thousand dollars. In return, they get to become an integral part of the conservation effort at each of these locations, doing daily dives for reef monitoring, fish identification, species analysis and so on. Some trips focus on particular creatures, like whale sharks and (in South Africa) Great White Sharks.

There's also usually a lot of talking to the locals, to find out how they live and what they need to make their lives easier. It sounds like hard work - to produce useful data for the reef monitoring, you can't simply jump in the water - you have to know what you're looking for and stick to a methodology to do it. Similarly, you can't tell the locals how to live their lives or what they should or shouldn't do in the sea - you have to listen to them and understand how their whole culture and lifestyle works. In short, it's a fascinating crash course in the life of another country, both underwater and overland, and it's also a chance to see first hand what's happening to marine life and understand what's being done to help it. It's certainly something I'd love to do at some point.

I idly did a search on Google for scuba diving conservation holidays in Asia Pacific, and I found loads of them. If you've been on a trip with any of these companies, or know of any more who offer other conservation holidays in Asia, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a comment below or email me.

- Responsible Travel - lots of destinations worldwide , including Fiji and Sulawesi, Indonesia
- CoralCay - Whale Shark monitoring, Philippines and Coral Reefs, Fiji
- Raleigh International - Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo
- Global Vision - Seychelles
- Travelroots - North Sulawesi, Indonesia
- Greenforce - Fiji
- Reef Doctor - Madagascar