Blue Ventures

Globally, tropical coastal ecosystems are critical to livelihoods, cultures and food security of hundreds of millions of people, but are in unabated decline due to overexploitation and climate change. Throughout much of the developing world fragile marine resources are under siege from a range of human and climatic impacts, with less than 1% of marine ecosystems under effective protection.

Inspired by a paucity of marine resource governance globally Blue Ventures works alongside partner communities at remote conservation sites. Data collected on the status of marine environments, analysed in partnership with community leaders, are widely disseminated so that communities begin to understand the ecological condition of their marine environment as well as the biological and economic case for conservation management as a tool for restocking depleted fisheries and safeguarding ecosystem resilience.

Blue Ventures works to develop community owned marine conservation solutions through an ambitious portfolio encompassing marine and fisheries research, sustainable aquaculture, family planning and public health, environmental education, fisheries management and protected area development. Integrating such a broad range of initiatives and delivering them in a specific geographic area represents a novel approach to the development of sustainable and holistic community led marine and coastal conservation in tropical developing world countries.