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Marine Life & Conservation

Green Fins launches in Jordan

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The Reef-World Foundation is delighted to announce that Jordan is now the 15th country globally to implement the Green Fins programme — a UN Environment Programme initiative. The programme’s launch in Aqaba is evidence of Jordan’s commitment to safeguarding its natural resources and promoting sustainable tourism as the country builds its reputation as a world-class diving destination.

Green Fins is implemented in the country by Aqaba Special Economy Zone Authority (ASEZA) with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the “Employment-oriented MSME promotion” project on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), with the ultimate aim of improving the communication of environmental best practice from local diving centres to environmentally conscious tourists to help protect the environment.

Dominik Lee Zaax Wyszogrodzki, Green Fins Local Team Leader, said: “Divers are willing to pay more for services provided by dive centres that follow environmental regulations, and they expect dive centres to be leading the way in protecting the ocean. Implementing Green Fins in Aqaba is going to open us up to new markets and bring us to be one of the top diving destinations in the world.”

Following a week of training by an all-female-led training team from Reef-World (10 to 15 June 2023), Jordan now has a national Green Fins team comprised of five fully certified Green Fins Assessors and two Green Fins Coordinators from representatives of the Royal Jordanian Navy Forces, Aqaba Marine Reserve and the University of Jordan made up of a diverse group of local diving experts, environmentalists, and industry leaders. The Green Fins Jordan team is led by Ms Thelma Redwan, the Product Director at ASEZA, who coordinates the programme in collaboration with The Reef-World Foundation, GIZ, and other stakeholders.

The newly established local Green Fins team will be responsible for recruiting, assessing, training and certifying dive and snorkel operators to become Green Fins Members in the country. This involves providing training about the ecology and threats to coral reefs, advice for adopting simple and practical solutions to these threats and guidance to the Green Fins’ environmental standards for dive and snorkel operators. Green Fins membership will help marine tourism operators identify priority areas to improve their business sustainability performance and communicate their commitment  to following environmental best practices as a way of attracting eco-minded tourists.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Jordan to the Green Fins network as the fifteenth country to adopt the initiative to secure the future sustainability of their marine tourism industry,” said Chloe Harvey, Executive Director of The Reef-World Foundation. “ASEZA has shown exceptional leadership in recognising the opportunity to establish best environmental practice among their diving community with Green Fins. Jordan is a unique diving destination and home to a bountiful array of marine life. Our coral reefs are in serious trouble; it’s possible that coral reefs globally could be lost in our lifetime. Reducing local, direct threats to coral reefs, such as those posed by diving and snorkelling activities, will significantly improve their chance of survival.” 

Diving and snorkelling-related damage to sensitive marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, is becoming an increasingly significant issue. This damage makes them less likely to survive other local and wider threats, such as those associated with overfishing or plastic debris and the effects of climate change. Based on robust individual assessments of business practices, the Green Fins initiative helps identify high-risk activities. The assessors then work with participating business leaders to build and commit to a tailored sustainability action plan to address these risks. Through Green Fins implementation in Jordan, Reef-World aims to improve the sustainability of the diving industry in the region by working with 15 marine tourism operators, training 75 dive guides and raising awareness of sustainability best practices among 15,000 tourists in the first year of implementation.

Abdullah, Manager at Red Sea Dive Center, said: “I signed up for the Green Fins membership and got the help and support of the Green Fins team. I saw how thorough the process was and all the things they do on the assessment day. Now I’m convinced it’s an amazing programme that could really help the environment and one I’m very proud to be part of!”

Green Fins is a UN Environment Programme initiative, internationally coordinated by The Reef-World Foundation, which aims to protect and conserve coral reefs through environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving and snorkelling tourism industry. Green Fins provides the only internationally recognised environmental standards for the diving and snorkelling industry and has a robust assessment system to measure compliance.

To date, four dive operators in Aqaba have joined the global network of 700+ trained and assessed Green Fins Members. These are: Aqaba Adventure Divers, Arab Divers, Coral Garden Diving Center and Red Sea Dive Center.

For more information, please visit www.reef-world.org or  www.greenfins.net/countries/jordan. Dive and snorkel operators in Jordan interested in becoming Green Fins Members can sign up at: www.greenfins.net/register or contact the team at jordan@greenfins.net.

Marine Life & Conservation

Book Review: Into the Great Wide Ocean

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diving book

Into the Great Wide Ocean: Life in the Least Known Habitat on Earth by Sonke Johnsen

What an unexpected surprise! A book that combines a clear passion for the ocean with humour and the deft touch of a true storyteller. Johnsen gives a wonderful insight into the life of a deep sea marine biologist , the weird and wonderful animals encountered in this mysterious world, the trials and tribulations, in a way that makes you feel you have been sat at a table chatting about his work over a pint or cup of tea.

Even for divers, the deep blue open ocean can feel inaccessible. It is one of the least studied places in the universe. In this book that deep blue ocean and its inhabitants is brought to you with warmth and wit. And even the most well-read will come away with new facts and information. Johnsen’s goal is one that resonates throughout: Before we as scientists can ask people to preserve this important and fragile habitat, we need to show them that it’s there and the beauty of what lives in it. He does just that.

This is a book that combines the scientific with a deeply personal story. You feel what it is like to work out in the open ocean and get to know the animals that reside there. With descriptions that allow you to really imagine what it feels like being out there in the blue.

What the publisher says:

The open ocean, far from the shore and miles above the seafloor, is a vast and formidable habitat that is home to the most abundant life on our planet, from giant squid and jellyfish to anglerfish with bioluminescent lures that draw prey into their toothy mouths. Into the Great Wide Ocean takes readers inside the peculiar world of the seagoing scientists who are providing tantalizing new insights into how the animals of the open ocean solve the problems of their existence.

Sönke Johnsen vividly describes how life in the water column of the open sea contends with a host of environmental challenges, such as gravity, movement, the absence of light, pressure that could crush a truck, catching food while not becoming food, finding a mate, raising young, and forming communities. He interweaves stories about the joys and hardships of the scientists who explore this beautiful and mysterious realm, which is under threat from human activity and rapidly changing before our eyes.

Into the Great Wide Ocean presents the sea and its inhabitants as you have never seen them before and reminds us that the rules of survival in the open ocean, though they may seem strange to us, are the primary rules of life on Earth.

About the Author:

Sönke Johnsen is professor of biology at Duke University. He is the author of The Optics of Life: A Biologist’s Guide to Light in Nature and the coauthor of Visual Ecology (both Princeton). Marlin Peterson, who created original illustrations for this book, is an illustrator and muralist who teaches and illustrates in many styles and media. He also specializes in giant optical illusions such as his harvestmen mural below the Space Needle in Seattle, and his full portfolio can be found at marlinpeterson.com.

Book Details

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Hardcover

Price: £20.00

ISBN: 9780691181745

Published: 7th January, 2025

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Marine Life & Conservation

Double Bubble for the Shark Trust

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This week only – your donation to the Shark Trust will be doubled – at no extra cost to you!

The Shark Trust are raising vital funds for their Community Engagement Programme: empowering people to learn about sharks and rays, assisting the scientific community take action for elasmobranchs, and bring communities together to become ambassadors for change.

Every £1 you give = £2 for shark conservation. A donation of £10 becomes £20, £50 becomes £100! Help us reach our target of £10,000, if successful, this will be doubled to £20,000 by the Big Give.

Every donation makes DOUBLE the impact!

Monty Halls is backing this week of fundraising “Cousteau called sharks the “splendid savage of the sea”, and even through the more benign lens of modern shark interactions it remains a good description. The reefs I dived thirty years ago teemed with sharks, the perfect result of 450 million years of evolution. Today those same reefs are silent, the blue water empty of those elegant shadows. But hope remains that if one generation has created such devastation, so the next can reverse the damage that has been done. The Shark Trust are at the forefront of that fight.

Donate Here

To find out more about the work of the Shark Trust visit their website here.

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