The PADI AWARE Foundation says it is distributing more than US $500,000 this year for its 2024 Mission Hub Community Grant Programme.
From sea turtle conservation through coral restoration to seagrass planting, the charity has selected five initiatives, bringing to 45 the total since the programme started three years ago.
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“These PADI dive-centres and NGOs are driving meaningful local action from the heart and often with little or no funding support, and these grants allow them to be true superheroes for our shared blue planet,” said PADI AWARE global director Danna Moore.
PADI AWARE launched the programme in 2022 to help drive PADI’s Blueprint for Ocean Action. The grants are awarded in five categories: coral restoration, developing Marine Protected Areas, eliminating marine debris, reducing the effects of climate change, and marine species protection.
Sea Communities was founded in Bali, Indonesia in 2012 to continue coral-restoration work with the local fishing community employing citizen-scientists, says the foundation. They have expanded into coral nurseries, micro-fragmentation trials and mass plantings by volunteer divers and local fishers.
The grant is to enable the communities to continue the work of STARR (Scientific Trial Active Reef Rehabilitation), bringing local and travelling recreational divers together to collaborate with scientists on coral conservation.

Scuba and salvage
Rwenzori Scuba Divers & Salvage addresses problems of waste management (especially plastics) in East Africa. With 90% of rivers in Uganda draining into Lake Victoria, the main source of fish, transport and water for 20 million people is also reckoned to be the most polluted body of water in the region.
The grant aims to help Rwenzori to establish the LVRPA Initiative (Lake Victoria Rwenzori Scuba Divers and PADI AWARE Conservation Programme) in a bid to improve sanitation issues through citizen science, community engagement and training, conservation partnerships, youth initiatives and Dive Against Debris clean-ups and surveys
Mike’s Dauin Beach Resort, a 5* PADI dive resort on Negros Oriental in the Philippines, is committed to protecting the fragile marine ecosystem of its local waters, including a 13km coastline with extensive seagrass beds where green turtle forage.
Its grant is to support the Pawikan Project, which surveys and documents the distribution and health of the turtle population and the seagrass, working with local and national authorities.

With three dive-centres located across Bali, Blue Corner Dive is expanding its conservation arm – Blue Corner Marine Research – to build on coral-restoration work it has been carrying out since 2017.
It focuses on conservation education, reef-health monitoring and ecosystem restoration and has been working on large-scale restoration of an area of degraded reef along the northern coastline of Nusa Penida, reckoned to be arguably the most ecologically important reef in the Nusa Islands, and the funds are intended to enable work over 1,000sq m (a tenth of a hectare)
The project is said to create opportunities for Indonesian marine biologists to work and train others in coral restoration. Blue Corner Dive’s team of female biologists were trained as PADI Divemasters this year and will be leading the reef-restoration efforts through citizen science and educating both divers and the community.
Reef restoration
In Thailand, Big Bubble Dive Resort is operated by the community of Koh Tao and has been committed to restoring coral reefs since 2017, working with the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources to plant more than 100,000 coral fragments around the island. PADI AWARE helped it to expand the project in 2022.
With a proven coral survival rate of 80%, the resort is embarking on a new initiative using the grant, aiming to plant 3,000 coral fragments in Chalok Bay to commemorate its 30th anniversary, mobilising local and international divers to participate through its citizen-science programme.
The PADI AWARE Mission Hub Community Grant Programme is open to all PADI dive-centres, locally based NGOs and charities working on marine conservation issues with an operating budget below US $1 million.
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