As the effects of climate change are felt on the Earth, the tragedy ahead is calling out to a new generation of heroes. Will you be one of them?

Blue Ocean Watch, with support from sponsors, is on the frontlines of protecting, planting and propagating one of the most critical elements to healthy oceans.

BOW handles overall strategic planning and implementation of coral restoration.

Leading the coral growing and restoration are Professor Alex Moore, our chief climate change scientist with Harvard University, together with Dr. Sebastien Hennige and Professor Murray Roberts, experts on tropical and cold-water coral reefs, both with Edinburgh University.

Our partners Operation Wallacea (OpWall) headed up by Dr. Dan Exton, provide and supervise PhD students to run all site operations.

The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) based in Southampton and Liverpool headed up by Professor Angela Hatton and the University of Plymouth provide technical and equipment support.

In addition, we have a network of affiliated team members throughout the world that support our endeavours through alliances with academic institutions, media resources and technology advancements.

Our parters OpWall

OpWall is allied to countless universities worldwide. Dan is also an Honorary Lecturer at University of Essex and supervises PhD students at Oxford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham, Lancaster, Portsmouth, South Wales and Open University.

Research is supported by three types of students who join the Honduras programme:

  • SCHOOLS – groups of 16-18-year-old school students from thirty-five countries, led by their teachers, who are generally studying biology, geography or environmental science.
  • RESEARCH ASSISTANTS – university students who join to get broad experience in field research.
  • DISSERTATIONS – university students who join to collect data for their undergraduate of masters level dissertation/thesis projects.

Each individual research project is led in the field by a PhD student or an early career marine scientist. This forms an extremely valuable source of funded fieldwork and also lets them develop a new skillset such as supervising dissertation student projects, delivering lectures, logistical support for remote fieldwork etc.

Media production

BOW has a proprietary system designed to provide live video coverage of coral restoration and many other ocean subjects with information in an understandable and interactive form. Remotely controlled cameras and instruments obtain live data such as sea temperature, salinity, PH, depth, light absorption, current etc. To enhance our media capabilities, the BOW research and development team is developing time-lapse video cameras to show the progress of coral growth in reefs over multiple years, live cameras on coral reefs that can be accessed from anywhere in the world and remotely controlled 360º cameras on underwater drones that will open up the underwater environment for everyone to explore.

Educational research platform

Utilizing the OpWall network comprised of hundreds of deployed scientific research sites, BOW will create a data driven portal for scientific input and end user extraction. The portal will include not only data synthesis but live camera feeds, connection with measuring instruments and interactive communication between students and the onsite teams.

The result is a dynamic, custom research platform that will make science come alive!