Year: 2012
Record numbers of critically endangered tortoise counted by Blue Ventures
by Shanta Barley, Field Scientist, Madagascar When Ryan Walker, a biologist based at the Open University, and his team crawled on their hands and knees through 60 kilometres of clothes-shredding, hair-plucking spiny forest between Toliara and the Mangoky River, racking...
One coffee and a warty chameleon, coming right up!
by Shanta Barley, Field Scientist, Madagascar With 57 of the world’s 131 species of chameleon, including the largest and the smallest, Madagascar has a monopoly on the family’s diversity. This unusual individual (see photo, below) was spotted clinging to a...
Shark vs Cyclone
by Shanta Barley, Field Scientist, Madagascar What constitutes a duvet day for a Vezo shark fisherman? Not the threat of capsizing in seven metre waves, it turns out. Yesterday, Andava bay was peppered with pirogues en route to the Mozambique...
Connecting the dots…
by Jo Hudson, Science Intern, Blue Ventures Head Office Connecting Classrooms is the joint project between UNICEF and Blue Ventures, which will enhance our community-based conservation programmes through innovative, technological teaching tools for the youth of coastal southwest Madagascar. By using...
The boy who cried whale
“A dead whale? Washed up in Antsanaranasoa bay?” Within minutes, a mob of villagers, armed with axes and buckets, was sprinting through the spiny forest, effortlessly hurdling knee-high thorny shrubs, in a race to procure enough fish bait to last...
Feom’bezo (the Voice of the Vezo) radio show
The Velondriake Management Committee works hard to keep the community informed about its many conservation activities, and how these benefit the community. In September 2011, Velondriake began producing a bi-monthly radio show in partnership with Blue Ventures, called Feom’Bezo (The...
Starting out in Sarteneja
By Casey Lewis, Blue Ventures volunteer, Belize I arrived in Sarteneja, Belize a little after 5pm – just in time to watch the sunset creep over the small town. Sarteneja is right by the ocean with beautiful views of the...
Reporting from the Climate change, deforestation and the future of African rainforests conference
Reporting from the Climate change, deforestation and the future of African rainforests conference, January 4-6, 2012, Oriel College, Oxford University, Oxford, UK by Trevor Jones, PhD, Remote Sensing Scientist Greetings from the opening day of the Climate change, deforestation and...