Building a better picture of the coast of Negros

Have you ever wondered what a seabird’s-eye view of a coral reef would look like? Marine Conservation Philippines is out to find out! Updating and diversifying our library of photos is an important part of our ongoing mission to expand our knowledge of the marine environments of Negros Oriental. We routinely photograph everything from daily goings on (frequently posted on our social media channels), to our surveys and the marine ecosystems of our region. These photos serve a multitude of different purposes including scientific documentation, education, training, social media promotion, and coastal ecosystem mapping. Our most recent initiative in the photographic realm has been an
expansion of our photographic documentation of our dive sites from the air via drone photography.

The view looking Northeast from Sitio Polo and the Lutoban MPA toward Zamboanguita, Apo
Island and Siquijor. This section of coastline is an excellent example of the typical topography of our local fringing reefs. A short sandy beach slopes down to a flat and shallow rocky reef crest, which gives way to a gently sloping reef.

Aside from providing us with beautiful images to share, drone photography grants us new methods to track ecosystem changes over time and to make detailed, accurate, and up-to-date maps of our survey sites. These maps, in turn, help us to plan our dives and orient our divers when they are ready for the scientific work after passing their PADI courses. Things like
site topography, Marine Protected Area boundaries, survey zones, beach access points, and environmental hazards all become much easier to visualize and plan around with the help of these
highly detailed visual aids.

MCP almost exclusively conducts shore dive surveys over rocky fringing reefs, making safe entry and exit points a vital consideration. Aerial photos, like this one of Salag MPA, provide insight and visual references into the best ways to safely enter and exit the water at low tide. Note the pale channels of sand near the beach.

As we continue to build a larger library of aerial photographs, we aim to combine drone photography, GPS data, and our ongoing data collection to add dimensions to our projects. New techniques (recently we added a water sensor array to our dive kits for example) allow us to interface with and present our data in new ways, making our scientific communication, community engagement, and environmental monitoring efforts more effective! For now, drone photography is a tool that will help to make the everyday lives of our volunteer scuba divers and staff easier and safer by helping us map out the safest ways to access and delineate our study sites