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Kelso scientist fights to save world’s fragile marine ecosystems
Al Harris
EIGHT years ago marine scientist, Alasdair Harris, from Kelso, was doing undergraduate research work on one of Madagascar’s relatively unstudied coral reefs.
He made a depressing discovery – four decades of sediment and pollution had choked the reef. When the funding from Edinburgh University ran out in 2003, he returned to the UK feeling that his work had made little difference to tackling the problem.
It was then that Dr Harris, by this point studying for a master’s degree at Oxford University, came up with the inspirational idea of founding his own non-profit conservation organisation that would work to find sustainable solutions to the problems beseiging the marine ecosystems of Madagascar and some of the world’s other fragile coastal environments.
Blue Ventures was the result, with organised expeditions for environmental tourists the way the organisation was to be funded.
Not only did these volunteer helpers provide the cash to fund Blue Ventures’ work, they also provided willing assistance in helping survey Madagascar’s little-known barrier reefs.
Through Blue Ventures’ marine expeditions, volunteers from around the world join the organisation on career breaks, student gap years and internships, working closely with its field research teams, in partnership with local communities.
Now an award-winning marine conservation organisation dedicated to conservation, education and sustainable development in tropical coastal communities, Blue Ventures has helped set up marine reserves, aquaculture businesses, education programmes and even family planning clinics in Madagascar, Malaysia and Belize. And Dr Harris’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. He is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas, recipient of the 2010 IUCN World Conservation Union’s Young Conservationist Award and winner of the 2009 Condé Nast Environment Award.
His work developing sustainable business approaches for financing conservation has twice been commended by the UK government in the Enterprising Young Brits awards.
And voting has this month opened for the World Challenge 2010 Award, an international competition organised by BBC World News and Newsweek magazine to champion projects showing enterprise and innovation at a grassroots level.
Blue Ventures is one of this year’s 12 finalists, selected from more than 800 nominations worldwide for its work in using social enterprise to drive sustainable community-based conservation initiatives.
Dr Harris says Blue Ventures believes developing coastal communities can live in harmony with their marine environments if they are given the knowledge and skills they need to live sustainably.
“In just eight years we have become quite a serious player in the Indian Ocean in this field, employing between 50 and 100 people,” Dr Harris told TheSouthern this week.
And there is no shortage of volunteers – including some from the Borders – willing to fork out their hard-earned cash for a chance to contribute to Blue Ventures’ work. “This kind of conservation work is what you call sexy science – it gets a lot of media attention because of the exotic locations,” Dr Harris said.
“But that means we have plenty of people interested in volunteering and that is what funds our work. If you were offering people the chance to work on estuarine mud flats off St Abbs in poor weather, it might not be as popular.”
Dr Harris says empowering coastal communities to look after their own environment and natural resources is the key to creating sustainable methods of fishing and living in harmony with the sea.
“There are lessons to be had when you look at the mess our own fisheries are in. How many people in the Borders are familiar with their own coastline or what happens in the waters off it?
“We are so distanced from our own seas. They are no longer managed by local communities and there is now over-capacity in most of the industrialised countries’ fishing fleets.
“In countries like Madagascar we are working in areas where there is no government presence and no capacity to enforce fisheries legislation. Such places could see their fisheries go very badly wrong and that’s why we are working to encourage local communities to engage with us.”
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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