Coral Sea Foundation Image Library
Donation protected
The coral reefs of northern New Guinea have the highest biodiversity in the world, however they are remote and rarely visited by marine scientists. Remarkably, they appear to have escaped damage during the global bleaching events of the last two years.
Dr Andy Lewis of the Coral Sea Foundation has worked as a biologist and ecotourism guide through this area for the last 12 years, gathering an incredible collection of high resolution photographs of the condition of the coral reefs. Andy's image library currently contains 40,000 images collected from 160 different reef locations, and it is unique in the world.
The objective here is to raise funds to put the image library online, so the valuable information it contains is easily available to scientists, managers, and anybody interested in the effects of climate change and the health of our oceans. The images are sufficently detailed to identify corals to family (and genus in many cases) and estimate coral cover, as well as showing evidence of damage from cyclones, bleaching, and crown of thorns starfish.
We will work with a dedicated web design consultant to develop a user-friendly system so that users can browse through the sites using a Google Earth interface, and then view the images sorted by the year they were taken. The funding will also help cover the costs of uploading and hosting the 220GB of digital material contained in the library.
Despite the incredible diversity and condition of the coral reefs along the north coast of New Guinea, very few of them are protected in marine parks, and many of them are under increasing fishing pressure from local people. Our hope is that by providing real information on the condition of the reefs, we will raise awareness of both the robust nature of these ecosystems to thermal bleaching, as well as the need for marine reserves to help provide sustainable fisheries and ecotourism destinations.
Our partner project training the Sea Women of Melanesia also supports this objective.
Thank you for your interest and support.
Dr Andy Lewis of the Coral Sea Foundation has worked as a biologist and ecotourism guide through this area for the last 12 years, gathering an incredible collection of high resolution photographs of the condition of the coral reefs. Andy's image library currently contains 40,000 images collected from 160 different reef locations, and it is unique in the world.
The objective here is to raise funds to put the image library online, so the valuable information it contains is easily available to scientists, managers, and anybody interested in the effects of climate change and the health of our oceans. The images are sufficently detailed to identify corals to family (and genus in many cases) and estimate coral cover, as well as showing evidence of damage from cyclones, bleaching, and crown of thorns starfish.
We will work with a dedicated web design consultant to develop a user-friendly system so that users can browse through the sites using a Google Earth interface, and then view the images sorted by the year they were taken. The funding will also help cover the costs of uploading and hosting the 220GB of digital material contained in the library.
Despite the incredible diversity and condition of the coral reefs along the north coast of New Guinea, very few of them are protected in marine parks, and many of them are under increasing fishing pressure from local people. Our hope is that by providing real information on the condition of the reefs, we will raise awareness of both the robust nature of these ecosystems to thermal bleaching, as well as the need for marine reserves to help provide sustainable fisheries and ecotourism destinations.
Our partner project training the Sea Women of Melanesia also supports this objective.
Thank you for your interest and support.
Organizer
Andy Lewis
Organizer
Nelly Bay, QLD