During the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, if you are unable to travel, you can still gain first-hand experience in applied marine conservation on our remote internship programme, which includes “Real Time Monitoring of Marine Ecosystems”. Students, graduates and young professionals can gain scientific, policy or communication experience working with the research team of Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation.

This exciting remote internship offers interns an immersive opportunity to remotely aid researchers who continue to work in the field, by helping to analyze and interpret data being collected with the use of state of the art equipment. Part of this data-set can be shared in real-time, during surveys conducted in the spring, summer and autumn of 2020.

Real-Time Monitoring of Marine Ecosystems uses a combination of:

• Drone-based marine mammal surveys, which are combined with data collected during boat-based research surveys,
• Underwater cameras monitoring the biodiversity of coastal ecosystems and the spread of invasive species. Footage can be shared in real-time.
• Underwater sensors logging oceanographic data in response to the current changing climate.

With travel restrictions in place, the use of these innovative technologies and software programs overcome accessibility issues and provides remote interns with a modern way of monitoring marine ecosystems with minimal human disturbance. Data will be utilized to inform local conservation and environmental management activities. It will also help describe how ecosystems respond during the time of minimal human disturbance at sea during and after the time of restrictions due to the COVID-19 outbreak.