At Underwater vision, we are encouraging environmental action in multiple ways, and with support, we could expand our impact.

We have a team of passionate volunteers organizing activities that benefit the community, our oceans, and the world. As our divers continue their journey through the Americas and the world, we want them to leave the island with the ability to spread knowledge and the ability to take action.

Beach cleanups: Our regular beach cleanups have occurred for a number of years, focusing on a particularly hard hit section of the island. On this beach, small bits of broken down plastic and micro plastics are mixed homogeneously with sand and coral. We regularly remove hundreds of pounds of plastic from these beaches, removing debris that are commonly consumed by sea birds, fish, and the island's endangered turtles. While we have made tremendous progress, no one on the island is prepared for the tremendous amounts of broken down plastic. While participants for these cleanups are volunteers, transportation, disposal fees, and hauling fees have been the limiting factor to the frequency of these events. In addition, with funding, we could purchase mechanized systems that separate unwanted debris while returning sand and rock back to the beach to be used by marine life. This would allow us to make significant strides in rehabilitating our badly damaged beaches.

Dive Against Debris: Through PADI Aware’s Dive Against Debris program, Underwater Vision and its patrons collect trash from the depths of the ocean. Ranging from water bottles and fish nets to couches and refrigerators that require lift bags to remove from the ocean floor. Surveys are conducted on these dives and submitted to Dive Against Debris to be used to inform policy change. These activities are conducted by volunteers which keeps the cost low, however, with additional funding, we could increase the frequency of these events and get ahead of the problem by assisting local communities with alternative, safe, and effective trash disposal options.

Utila Coral Nursery Maintenance: As with most places around the world, Utila has seen a decline in coral reef cover. Divers have helped protect the reef from many threats, however, bleaching, coral diseases, pollution, and historic damage have still left their mark. While mitigation and conservation are prioritized, restoration can not be overlooked as a necessary component of the triage needed to save our reefs. Underwater Vision has an in house coral nursery program tailored by our world renowned Course Director, Grace Williams. While other efforts on the island for a coral restoration program have stagnated, we have the expertise needed to kick this program into full swing. Grace Williams has been working with local NGOs and Utilas municipal government to secure the appropriate permits to start a full scale coral nursery and restoration program. Thanks to a robust recreational dive program, a dramatic increase in eco tourism, and an established, high recruitment of volunteers, funding needs for this program can be kept much lower than comparable projects around the world. As funding is secured, we will begin building our coral nursery in our shallow and protected house reef. With the proper equipment for coral fragmentation, corals from the nursery can then be fragmented, grown out further, then outplanted to damaged sites around the island.

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Treatment and Survey: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease is a highly contagious coral disease that has swept through the carribean in recent years. While likely the most deadly coral disease in history, all hope is not lost. Underwater Vision takes on survey efforts to monitor the spread of the disease and when possible, treats the affected corals with antibiotics. While labor intensive, the treatment has been effective in stopping the spread of the disease on individual corals. The alternative is to let the disease kill many decades of coral growth in a matter of weeks. The cost of antibiotics, while not exorbitant, has been cost prohibitive. We currently treat corals once per month, we would like to treat corals once per week.

Compost: While our composting project is still in the planning stages, It tackles an important issue and is worth mentioning. Excess nutrients from discarded food wreak havoc on our environment. If taken to a landfill, this biomass breaks down in hypoxic conditions, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2. If dumped in the ocean, it feeds algae growth that can smother and kill corals. Currently, food waste on the island is discarded to a landfill. We hope to recycle some of these nutrients through composting. Using food waste, nitrogen rich manure from local, small scale poultry farms, and lawn clippings, we can convert these waste products into a nutrient rich fertilizer that can be used by food producers on the island. While not directly diving related, there is ample interest in this project within the dive community to integrate it into a broader eco program. While the costs for such a project are low, startup costs for basic equipment on the island have been a limiting factor.

Recycling: Curbing single use plastic is of top priority, however, what happens with current single use plastic should not be overlooked. Plastic on the island is currently collected with municipal waste, separated, and shipped to mainland for further distribution and processing. As technology evolves and becomes more open sourced, systems for small scale plastic recycling are now within reach. Currently in the wish list phase, with a relatively small investment, Underwater Vision could begin collecting, sorting, shredding, and making plastic objects such as cups, tupperware, wetsuit hangers, underwater survey clipboards, and many more useful items that we currently have a hard time sourcing on the island out of recycled plastic.

Fish Survey: How many fish are on the reef every year? This is a question that scientist try to work out on a regular basis. Underwater Vision is currently making efforts to increase its participation in the REEF Foundation’s fish survey program. With this program, recreational divers can make every dive a survey in which their collected data can be used to track fish populations and inform policy decisions around the world.

Coral Watch: While treating diseased corals and propagating new corals is invaluable, a lot can be gained by collecting data on the corals we still have. Using survey methods created by the University Of Queensland, divers can collect data on corals to monitor coral bleaching.

Eco Organizing: A program still in the planning stages, Eco Organizing will teach scuba divers how to start, grow, and assist grassroots projects. We hope to create leaders in environmental action that can go out into the world and be a catalyst for change.

Education: With all of these projects, a common thread is education. As a

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Working with web 3 beach to organize beach clean ups and EFR training.