We are really excited about the upcoming field season for A Rocha Kenya’s Marine Conservation and Research Programme. Benjo arrived safely back in Watamu yesterday and Bob and his family have been at Mwamba this past week laying the ground work for some exciting new projects. We’ll continue to post some of the new discoveries we make and look forward to even better photos as we learn how to use our new underwater camera, kindly paid for by a generous donor.
We will continue our research on coral reef biodiversity, completing our study of the fish and coral species at all coral reef sites in Watamu Marine National Park. The major addition for this field season is the expansion of our biodiversity studies into the shallow, nearshore habitats, especially beach, rockpool, and seagrass habitats. I (Bob) found it surprising that sandy beaches are so little studied globally. We look forward to making a small contribution to their understanding and providing Kenya Wildlife Service and other partners in Watamu with new information that can be used to manage these habitats.
We’ll also continue to develop resources to help integrate faith and science issues as related to marine conservation. Check out the faith pages on the ARK marine section of the website to find some resources including a Bible study on marine conservation, some articles, and a bibliography. We’ll be especially focusing this field season on “The Hidden Things of God in the Ocean.”
Lots more on the way — following up on our observations of juvenile guitarfish in the shallows, a possible shark, ray and guitarfish survey of the entire park, several visitors, establishing permanent monitoring sites, marine education projects in local schools, and surprises that we can’t anticipate. Glad you can join us for the journey.
