Your Research
Marine Research Expeditions Season 2020 – Intro
Marine Research Expeditions Season 2020 – Project Development
What is YOUR Open Research Project Idea?
Are you a motivated Marine Biologist, Ecologist or somewhat different water-associated Person?
Great! If you have an idea for a Research Project in the wet environment, no matter how big/small and need some help to pull it all together and make it happen, you found the right spot! We are seeking motivated people to get on board!
Our Offer to Make It All Happen
So here is the offer we make: We do have a boat, capable of housing 12 people in comfort (2 crew and generally 10 bunks free).
Onboard we also have a small assortment of useful gear for Marine Research, including Microscopes, Binoculars, DJI Mavic Pro Drone, Open ROV Trident, 4K Video Cameras and High-quality sound recording equipment ,as well as, the necessary hardware and software to cut, edit etc. all of this.
All this you are welcome to use (or we use it for you) during a stay on board! The ultimate goal of Project Manaia is pushing Marine Research ahead and making sure we have a marine environment to protect in a few years from now. Therefore, we feel like an option we can offer a like-minded person to push in that direction should be taken!
So send us a proposal of the work you would like to run aboard our SY Waya Waya and we will try to fit you in!
Everyone on board is expected to also help with daily tasks on board as well as help fellow researchers with their data collection. Due to the limited space on board, we might all end up helping each other out (yet another good networking experience)
Associated Costs on Board
After running our boat for several years, I have to say running costs are significantly smaller than the ones of a big research ship. This being said, we did manage to entirely fund previous research expeditions via crowdfunding, grants and other means. Generally, I like to assume that people do everything in their power to make those projects happen therefore the deal is this:
If everyone on board pulls along and tries to get a grant, runs a fundraising event etc. all the proceedings from any of those get put in a shared pot from which the running costs are covered. Once this pot is used up we restart. Sounds fair? Great!
The Deal About Collected Data
We are firm believers in the concept of working together. This does not stop at the data collection. If we want to work towards healthy oceans for future generations, we do not have the luxury of wasting time anymore. So if data is collected it needs to be shared amongst everyone who could make use of it.
Therefore, all collected data during a research cruise with us will be publicly available on our website and/or google spreadsheets and useable for other NGOs, researchers and scientists around the world working on similar topics. This not only helps everyone with their research but also saves time and ultimately speeds up the search for a solution to the problems we keep working on!
The Outcome
While positive results are clearly not something we can promise, we are hoping for amazing outcomes in future projects!
While the world is busy pointing out problems, we very much encourage people to think about the solutions rather than getting stuck in the downward spiral of millions of issues we are all struggling with.
If 10 years from now we can jump into the water and see a seagrass meadow and a coral reef, we are on a winning track.
So yes, the ideal outcome is a positive impact on the world more than anything. Of course, we are happy a financial buffer remains at the end of an expedition since maintenance costs on the boat tend to explode at times. Usually, these are the times when money is tight, so we are working on an emergency budget for the future.
However, the goal is to protect the environment we know too little about!
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