Citizen science, policy, and education. These are just three of the many words that come to mind when we reflect on the great work done by the Project AWARE® community, our partners and staff in 2018. 

2018 Impact Report

This year, Project AWARE embarked on a vision to become the largest underwater citizen science movement on the planet. In March, we hit an important milestone on that journey when data submitted by over 54,000 Project AWARE supporters across 114 countries reached one million pieces of trash removed and reported through our flagship citizen science program - Dive Against Debris®. That’s one million pieces of debris no longer wreaking havoc on marine life and fragile underwater habitats. 

Not only did we stepped up the fight against one of the biggest threats to the ocean, but we also increased our ambition to remove and record more marine debris faster than before to build the world’s largest underwater marine debris database and reach the next million by the end of 2020. This quality dataset is currently being analyzed and peer-reviewed to try to answer some fundamental questions on how marine debris interacts with ocean habitats, and, more importantly, to advance solutions.

Working towards long-term, meaningful solutions to the global marine debris crisis at local, national and international levels has been a priority for Project AWARE® since its inception in the early ’90s. But in 2018, we saw many stories of change emerging across the globe from our community of debris activists. One of them is a plastic bag ban influenced by Dive Against Debris® data and dive leaders committed to making a difference in their local communities for global impact. The ban on non-biodegradable plastic bags came into force on the beautiful South Pacific islands of Vanuatu in early 2018 creating a wave of change locally and globally, including the government of Vanuatu stepping forward to lead global marine debris commitments through the Commonwealth Blue Charter.

Thanks to the support of our donors, we invested further in Adopt a Dive Site™, an initiative at the heart of our citizen science work,  to pursue our goal of making every dive a survey dive. In 2018, the Project AWARE community responded by adopting an unprecedented number of sites, increasing our global footprint by 13.5% and spending almost 2,000 hours taking citizen science action through underwater surveying.

True to our history, we continued in our long fight for science-based conservation measures for vulnerable shark and ray species. A stronger finning ban for Mediterranean sharks, safeguards for giant devil rays in Turkey and a ban on intentional take of Greenland sharks in international waters were just a few areas where our relentless policy work with our shark conservation partners paid off.  We also worked to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically goal 14, “Life Below Water”, and worked alongside our Clean Ocean partners to advance policies on global ghost gear.

2018 saw “AWARE Week” going global with a call to action for the dive community to come together and protect fragile underwater habitats. This event, a joint initiative with our key partner PADI®, unveiled the newly revised Project AWARE specialty, increasing conservation as a core education component in the PADI diving training system. 

We are so proud of all we accomplished together this year. As we execute on our long-term vision at Project AWARE, we know we can’t do it without our global community - almost 1 million strong and counting - and our partners. Thank you for all you do with us to protect the ocean planet. 

Together we are Project AWARE®  - where conservation meets adventure℠.

Warmly,

Danna Moore
Director, Global Operations