What is biodiversity?
by Winnie Courtene-Jones, Field Scientist, Belize What is biodiversity? That was the question for grade 5 of the Sarteneja Roman Catholic school. We started the day with a trip to Shipstern Nature Reserve, home to a hugely diverse array of...
Jump for change: fundraising for school scholarships in Madagascar
Last month Ukti Shah managed to raise a phenomenal £500 for Blue Ventures’ school scholarships by doing a sponsored bungee jump! We asked her to share some thoughts about this experience… Why did you want to support Blue Ventures’ school scholarships?...
Tuck School of Business students study aquaculture in Madagascar
In March, five students from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth came to Madagascar to work alongside Blue Ventures’ community-based aquaculture project as part of their First Year Project. These highly experienced business students came to Madagascar, and got...
Symposium on ecological and social resilience in New York
By Kame Westerman, Blue Ventures Velondriake LMMA Coordinator from 2010 – 2102, Madagascar A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the American Museum of Natural History’s symposium on ecological and social resilience in island systems, which brought...
Blue forests workshop
This article by Mairead Rocke was originally published on the Blue Carbon Portal: you can read the original post here On the 17th and 18th of January 2013, the validation workshop for the GEF Blue Forests project was held at the...
24 hours of aquaculture site visits
In March, five students from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth came to Madagascar to work alongside Blue Ventures’ community-based aquaculture project as part of their First Year Project. These highly experienced business students came to Madagascar, and got...
Aquaculture in Madagascar by the Tuck School of Business
In March, five students from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth came to Madagascar to work alongside Blue Ventures’ community-based aquaculture project as part of their First Year Project. These highly experienced business students came to Madagascar, and got...
Education helps to change hearts and minds in Belize
by Rohsny, BV volunteer, Belize Despite its laidback charm, Sarteneja in Belize is a small, fairly insular community that has faced considerable hardship during the past half century. Also, as is true in many other places, the grown-ups in charge...
A trip to the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
by Samantha Cockburn, Medical Elective Student with the Safidy programme, Madagascar I’m Sam, a final year medical student currently studying at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in southwest England. Four years ago I went to a lecture at...
My visit to the Safidy programme in Andavadoaka
by Samantha Cockburn, Medical Elective with Safidy, Madagascar Three years ago I received an email from my medical school advertising a lecture aimed at local GPs entitled ‘Is Sex Going To Kill Us?’ given by Professor John Guillebaud, Emeritus Professor...
Feeling at home in Belize
By Pam Viele, BV volunteer, Belize The Blue Ventures homestay in the quaint fishing village of Sarteneja was the perfect way to experience the culture of this lovely spot beyond the perspective of a tourist. Like most of the volunteers,...
School on a Saturday?
by Christine Foulkes, BV volunteer, Madagascar The walk to school was interesting. We negotiated the daily route leading down to the boats in the bay. Then we turned into the narrow passage way at the edge of the village, through...
Reflections from a Belizean fishing village
by Daniel le Roux, BV Volunteer, Belize It seems to me that people usually start these sorts of things with a cliché: “Sarteneja was everything I imagined it would be”, or “I instantly felt at home in Sarteneja”. I hate...
A day in the life…
by Kirsty Rankin, BV volunteer, Madagascar Waking up to the relentless crash of breaking waves on halfmoon beach, I groan, turn over, but just before I close my eyes to the temptation of continued slumber I catch the dim glow...
The (not so) rum diaries: life in Belize
by Anders Hartmann, BV volunteer, Belize After 1 week at Bacalar Chico Dive Camp (BCDC) we have now learned the routines and the focus has moved towards surveys and passing the fish and benthic tests, both on computer and in...