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For Earth Day 2009 Scuba Nation decided to conduct a reef survey.
On the team going out were 5 customers together with Andy, Fabrice, Mike and Luca.
Luca is an Instructor with the international research project Reef Check, and he have in the past weeks been giving us staff at Scuba Nation an introduction into the structure and procedures of the Reef Check methodology.
Reef Check researches the general health and sustainability of the coral reefs by monitoring specific fish, invertebrates and substrates (coral) on the dive sites.
The method we normally have been using at Scuba Nation -Project AWARE's Coral Watch, looks at coral bleaching due to elevated temperatures or dropping water levels.
Our idea is to combine the two methodologies to create a better over-all picture of the health of our local reefs.
It was very much a successful day at the northern end of Koh Rong Samloem, where lots of information was gathered and seen in the course of 3 dives.
It was a bit unfortunate that the wind did not allow us to return to the site that we surveyed last year -enabling us to see the change in the course of a year, but it was still very much worth it and all participants learned a lot.
At the moment Luca is in the process of writing up the report with the findings for it to be added to the international data-base.
On behalf of Scuba Nation and Project AWARE we would like to thank all that helped making an effort.
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