Thank you for supporting us through another year of action to save coral reefs around the world.
“There must be so many programmes out there like Green Fins,” I told myself as a 23-year-old girl after hearing about it for the first time back in 2008 in Phuket, Thailand. I was a fresh-faced, fisherman-pant-wearing backpacker with a degree in Marine Biology and more than a thousand dives as a SCUBA diving instructor. I thought I knew a thing or two about conservation and the scuba diving industry.
Chloe and JJ in 2008 whilst volunteering for a Green Fins clean up in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand
But I soon realised that Green Fins is entirely unique, something that remains true to this day and something that YOU probably are aware of too by now. Soon after discovering the incredible team behind Green Fins Thailand and deciding to lend a hand as volunteers, we stumbled upon Reef-World’s founder, Anne Paranjoti (nee Miller). As many of you know, Anne is a deep analytical out-of-the-box thinker who has laid some really strong foundations for the charity to grow from.
It wasn’t long after that JJ (my husband and co-director) and I decided to take on the challenge of running Reef-World, a UK charity with a small bank account and a squeaky-clean reputation in impactful community-focused marine conservation projects. Initially, as a team of two, we built Green Fins out of a localised project into an international, proven and replicable programme. And here we are… almost 17 years later and now with a growing, powerful and extraordinary team of people around us… driving measurable results in sustainable marine tourism globally through Reef-World’s conservation programmes. And this is very much a result of your ongoing dedication and support over the years.
Chloe and JJ diving in Indonesia in 2009, during their early work to test the replicability of the Green Fins initiative
2024 has marked the 20th anniversary of both Reef-World and Green Fins, and we’ve had quite some knees up to celebrate. The highlight was certainly Green Fins Day which we held on 16 October and included a series of competitions and a networking event which brought together Green Fins dive centres and a lot of you, our Reef-World champions. It was incredible to bring together so many of you passionate people and learn more about how you are using the Green Fins tools to build sustainability into the heart of your businesses and everyday lives. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s staggering to think that we have supported more than 1,300 different local dive and snorkel businesses around the world in meeting their sustainability goals over the past 20 years.
Green Fins Day networking event
As a Reef-World team, we have sustained 20 years of meaningful conservation impact and that feels deeply monumental. However, it’s unfortunately been dovetailed by this being one of the roughest years to date for our coral reefs. Alongside our coral reef expert colleagues, we announced the Fourth Global Coral Reef Bleaching Event, which has surpassed any previous heat stresses felt on our reefs. Catastrophic levels of coral death have been reported throughout the year which has made working in this field extremely tough — many global events have pivoted in their agendas to cover sessions on mental health and wellbeing, aiming to protect those of us working at the coal face in protecting these reef systems.
But stories of resilience and change have happily sung through. Corals which seem to be super corals, able to withstand temperatures, unlike their colony counterparts. And we’re learning more every day about why this is, and how we can better support those corals to thrive in the new ocean they find themselves inhabiting.
As always, the Reef-World team met this news with an action-focused approach. Within a few weeks of the announcement, we launched the Green Fins Global Coral Bleaching Response Toolkit. The toolkit equips local coral reef champions worldwide with essential information and guidance to monitor bleaching events, take action, and support reef recovery after bleaching episodes. As a relatively small organisation, with a global reach, we are able to remain flexible and responsive to the needs of our stakeholders and the coral reef ecosystems. But this is only possible because of your generous support and cheerleading.
The team behind Reef-World has changed hugely over this last year. We've welcomed two incredible additions: Dev Albao as our new Programmes Manager — and honestly, how they spin all those plates keeping our global programmes running smoothly is beyond me! Then there's Naomi McClure, our Development Manager, who's systematically transforming how we resource our work and building resilience into the very foundations of our organisation.
Behind these new faces is our absolute powerhouse of a team. Our Programmes Officers — Emma, Erin, and Sam are the heart and soul of our work, leaving their fingerprints, minds and passion on everything we do. Teresa, our Senior Communications Officer, is the engine behind our communications, and she has this magical ability to make everything look AMAZING while she's at it. And Sam Craven, our Programmes Consultant, whose deep institutional knowledge and endless passion continue to be integral to Reef-World's growth.
JJ and my roles are changing too — purposefully and intentionally. Since joining the team almost 17 years ago, we have been knee-deep and heads down in the weeds of the organisation's operations. We have been putting in the hard graft, the travel, the beach trudges, the programme development workshops, the community capacity building and education work, the printing, the local community leader meetings — and having a lot of fun at the same time!
We now have a solid team to take these reigns and it’s time for us to start lifting our heads and start looking outside the organisation, to become the ambassadors Reef-World needs to take our team and work to the next level. As ambassadors, we can focus on telling more people about the amazing work we do, share our stories of impact and knowledge, learn from others and bring this knowledge to the team. We plan to spend more time talking to people like YOU, to understand more about you and the rest of our network of champions. What are your needs, what can we do better for you, how can we help you become an even stronger champion for our coral reefs’ survival?
So as we leave 2024, I look ahead to 2025 and the opportunities it will bring to connect more with people like you, who can help us to push ahead with optimism and positivity to save our coral reefs. Because the alternative is too unbearable to even imagine. I have faith that as a global community, we will start to make the political and daily choices needed to swing that needle away from a pathway towards mass coral extinction, and towards a world in which coral reefs and the incredible communities they support, both above and below the water, flourish and thrive.