The Reef-World Foundation - the charity which coordinates the Green Fins initiative internationally in partnership with the UN Environment Programme - led another series of successful ocean conscious business seminars at at DEMA Show (13-16 Nov 2019). These free events, which were attended by representatives across all segments of the dive industry, help businesses and professionals find ways of seating sustainability at the heart of their business model. Here, we hear from Paralenz on photography best practice and how underwater photographers can help us learn more about the underwater world.

Photography Best Practice

Jacob Dalhoff, Paralenz

Chloe introduced this session by admitting the impact photography can have on the environment and mentioned that some destinations are even blacklisting photographers for behaving irresponsibly. Reef-World’s research, she stated, had shown 74% of divers with a camera make damaging contacts with the reef so improving best practice in this area is key. The issue with people with cameras is they're typically looking through the lens rather than thinking about their buoyancy and positioning. The Reef-World Foundation has developed the Green Fins best practices for photographers and a handy how-to video to provide support for dive guides to ensure their customers are having minimal impact when taking their cameras underwater with them.

Chloe introduced Paralenz: a start-up who has built the ocean positive mindset into the very heart of their model. By identifying the positive influence its product offers through its ability to collect thermal data and footage can have for the international marine conservation community, and making this information available in a way that is valuable, they are truly making themselves part of the solution.

Jacob agreed that, while photographers are getting better, the industry can become better at communicating best practice guidelines for photographers to make a real difference in reversing the declining state of the oceans (remember: there are Green Fins materials to help with that!). He reminded attendees “visual storytelling is one of the most impactful tools that we have.” Through video and photography, recreational divers can inspire other people around the world.

He also explained the Paralenz cameras collect depth and temperature and so enable divers to collect important information to help us better understand the state of our oceans. He admits this data is not useful if you don’t know what is relevant or what to do with it. That’s why Paralenz focuses so strongly on partnerships; for example, Arizona State University is monitoring the bleaching event in Hawaii so being able to engage divers in Hawaii is a useful tool.

Jacob reminded the audience one of the best tools we can use to find out more about what’s going on under the surface of the water is, of course, the dive industry: “We don't have enough people looking under the surface of the ocean,” he said. “But there are more and more; it's a growing number.” Paralenz wants to empower recreational underwater photographers to help with our mission to find out more about the ocean: “The more we can optimise and teach how to make quality content, or make quality video, and have regular divers record video and upload that to their Facebook channels, that will inspire more people to go into water; creating more underwater messengers to care for and speak for the ocean.” That’s why Paralenz is focused on perfecting and optimising the flow of collecting video and getting that to as many people as possible. The aim is to get more divers engaged in data collection by using it as a way to add more meaning to each of their individual dives.

“Through our camera”, Jacob explained, “we wanted to find a way to incentivise people to share their data.” By uploading their dives to their state-of-the-art app, TheOceanBase, they can inspire other people as well as sharing data points with others that know how to use it. A new feature integrated into the application is that highlights of your dive can be selected and uploaded to a world map to inspire other people to look into different areas they might not have dived before or are interested in visiting. By adding the data to this world map, we can then “create a baseline” to see the state of the resort at this given time. In future, it will also be possible to add temperature and water salinity.

Paralenz is also working towards using AI to analyse video footage collected by people around the world. The data can be submitted anonymously and will be able to identify what’s relevant for marine science, process it and gather the different metrics to get a better understanding of what’s going on underwater. The challenge, of course, is that it’s cumbersome to develop this. That’s why partnerships are so important for the team at Paralenz – using the knowledge and connections of partners who are already experts, we can work together to get this technology built. Lots of different organisations are collecting data individually but Paralenz wants to gather as many relevant partners as possible and help them find a way of measuring progress and streamlining their data collection efforts.

How does Paralenz see the future? Jacob said they want to “build more partnerships so we can engage divers locally” and to do this on a global scale. They see their equipment as being a vital tool for research organisations around the world as well as a way for these projects to reach divers in their local communities.

This seminar series was made possible by the sponsorship of four companies who are already on the sustainable diving pathway and represent different stakeholder groups in the dive and travel industry:

Fourth Element is innovating dive manufacturing by producing dive gear using ghost fishing nets, biodegradable packaging made from vegetables is leading the latest environmental movement within the industry – Mission2020;
Explorer Ventures - is working towards the elimination of single-use plastics onboard its Caribbean vessels. It is also helping The Reef-World Foundation establish targeted liveaboard protocols as part of the Green Fins initiative with the hope of improving dive operator and liveaboard environmental policies worldwide;
Paralenz - a Danish tech company dedicated to the Ocean. Together with divers across the globe, they have developed a camera that enable divers to capture and share the state and life of the Ocean as a seamless part of the dive;
Blue O Two / Worldwide Dive and Sail works with partners with similar philosophies, sources local, sustainable products wherever possible, runs reef clean-ups and educates guests about how they can make a difference; for example, by encouraging them to bring eco-friendly toiletries, such as sunscreen and toothpaste.