The social scientists at work – Janne and her research assistant, Kara Early morning in front of Natokalau Sonia going over The Plan with the assembled ecology team After a second evening filled with Kava, the exchange of stories and curious inquiries, and a lot of laughter, …
Arrival at the tiny airstrip of Ovalau after a 12 min flight from Suva Wild West in the South Pacific: the main street of historic Levuka Heading out to Ovalau lagoon with Mesake, our local contact Mangrove and shallow reef seascape around Ovalau We spent the last two days …
The village meeting hall in Kalokolevu 500 kg of research gear arrived today – ready for some serious science! Yesterday morning, we met with our partners at WCS to discuss the planned work for the next weeks and the contacts to the communities we plan to work …
On Saturday, we went out in the rain to snorkel along the reefs directly in front of Suva to check out our “degraded site”. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the outer reefs were predominantly pretty healthy, with very low levels of fleshy algae and relatively …
BULA! After 46 hours of travel, four flights, 150 kg of luggage between us, 2/3 of us missing a connecting flight, and several panic stricken airport staff as they regarded our tank of emergency oxygen, the REPICORE ecologists have arrived in Fiji successfully! Needless to say the trip has really …
Today we returned to the capital of Manus Province, Lorengau. We spent five days on Ahus Island, a small coral cay a short distance off the northern coast of Manus. Arriving on the island, it was easy to see why our project partner Josh Cinner has been returning to …
After 42 hours on the road, we finally arrive in Port Moresby. Descending through the clouds towards the city after a flight north from Brisbane over the Great Barrier Reef, we catch the first glimpse of the Papuan coastline – a few scattered villages along an immense expanse …
