We would like you to meet some of our favourite people and organisations striving to protect fragile marine ecosystems in Zanzibar, East Africa and around the world. Click on the name of the organisation or project to visit their website and learn more.

Chumbe Island Coral Park

We cannot say enough about the work the Chumbe Island team are doing not only to protect their coral reef, but their education outreach programs to raise awareness for school children, fishermen, and villagers of Zanzibar on the importance of protecting our fragile marine resources! Chumbe Island have the only privately managed Marine Protected Area (MPA) and in addition to their own monitoring and research, they do so much more and really get involved on many projects and initiatives around the island! Their brilliant marine biologist assists us in facilitating our marine conservation courses for school groups! We highly recommend you stay with them or at least visit on a day trip to see for yourselves!

---

Sea Sense

Sea Sense is a Non Government Organisation (NGO) that works closely with coastal communities in Tanzania to conserve and protect endangered marine species including sea turtles, dugongs, whales, dolphins and whale sharks. While all species of sea turtles are endangered globally and protected in Zanzibar, they still face many challenges from poaching, fishing nets and even bad tourism practices (such as where they are entrapped in poor conditions and tourists are encouraged to pay money to swim with them.) We have called upon Sea Sense's expertise in the past while assisting Mnarani Aquarium in tending to sea turtle injuries and hope they can become more active in Zanzibar in the future.

---

Wildlife Conservation Society Tanzania Program

The Zanzibar Office of the WCS Tanzania Program has an active Marine Program assessing Marine Mammals, reporting on blast fishing, monitoring hmpback whale distribution, dolphin research, and an exciting shark and ray conservation project which we deeply hope can help us to protect our apex predators. We had the pleasure of assisting Dr. Gill Braulik with monitoring Humpback Whales in our area by looking after one of their hydraphones for the duration of the excercise.

---

CORDIO East Africa

Coastal Oceans Research and Development - Indian Ocean (CORDIO) focus on research and creating the knowledge to find solutions for protecting marine ecosystems and the people that depend on them. Scuba Do Zanzibar were happy to work together with Chumbe Island Coral Park to assist CORDIO with creating a form to collect regional Coral Bleaching Monitoring Data. We also attended a coral reef monitoring workshop conducted by Dr. David Obura and will be monitoring coral reefs in our area to participate in the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

---

Mwambao Coastal Community Network

Mwambao’s mission is facilitating a network linking coastal communities and other partner stakeholders that builds community resilience and implements improved sustainable coastal resource management and livelihoods. Mwambao are part of our coral reef monitoring network.

---

Marine Cultures

Marinecultures.org is a non-profit organization headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland with a branch in Zanzibar. They research and develop sustainable aquaculture together with the local community as an alternative to overfishing. They have many aquaculture projects such as sponge and coral farms, mooring buoy installations, octopus fisheries management and implementing no-take protected zones amongst others. Marine Cultures together with Chumbe Island organised the training workshop with Dr. Obura for our coral reef monitoring network.

---

Green Fins

The Green Fins project is an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Reef-World Foundation which has developed into the world’s only assessed environmental standards for SCUBA and Snorkel centres in the world to date. Although they are not yet active in our area, Scuba Do Zanzibar was developed on eco-friendly diving and snorkelling practices and our internal Code of Conduct is aligned and we have always adhered to Green Fins standards. We proudly display their posters and materials and hope they will soon expand this movement to Zanzibar and East Africa.

---

African Impact

If you are interested to volunteer in Africa, African Impact offer opportunities to volunteer in a number of destinations in Africa including here in Zanzibar. Several voluntourism opportunities involve dolphin research, coral reef monitoring and other marine conservation initiatives. African Impact are part of our local coral reef monitoring network.

---

WIOMSA

The Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) is a regional, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the educational, scientific and technological development of all aspects of marine sciences throughout the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region with a view toward sustaining the use and conservation of its marine resources. WIOMSA has a particular interest in linking the knowledge that emerges from research to the management and governance issues that affect marine and coastal ecosystems in the region.

---

Sea Shepherd

Operation Jodari 2018 - A multi agency partnership with the government of Tanzania to combat illegal fishing. Launched in early 2018, Operation Jodari is a campaign in partnership with the government of the United Republic of Tanzania to tackle illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in the Western Indian Ocean region, with law enforcement agents from the Deep Sea Fishing Authority, Tanzanian Navy and the Multi-Agency Task Team (MATT) patrolling with Sea Shepherd crew on board the Ocean Warrior. Click here for a video to see Operation Jodari in action.

---

Project AWARE

Project AWARE is a global movement for ocean protection which connects the passion for ocean adventure with the purpose of marine conservation. With PADI as their corporate sponsor and our dive centre being the only Green Star Awarded dive centre in our region, we closely follow Project AWARE initiatives, actively use their conservation-related course materials within our dive centre and link our beach and underwater cleanup activities to Project AWARE.

---

The Ocean Conservancy

The Ocean Conservancy drive a global movement to protect our Ocean. They also organise and drive the International Coastal Cleanup which happens on the third Saturday of September each year and has been going strong for over 30 years!! Our Scuba Do Zanzibar team has been participating in this global initiative since 2005, however we are always collecting rubbish when we find it.

---

Coral Reef Alliance

Coral Reef Alliance protects our most valuable and threatened ecosystem by leading holistic conservation programs that improve coral reef health and resilience. Although they are not active in our area, they have been and continue to be an excellent source of knowledge and I have utilised their educational resources for many years. I had the pleasure of meeting the team in their San Fransisco office a few years back and shared some of our local challenges and intiatives. Just have a look at their website if you want to learn more about coral reefs!