Documenting & Celebrating
Wellington's Marine Life
Join us as we document and celebrate the amazing marine life that calls Wellington’s coastal marine ecosystems ‘Wellington’s Blue Belt‘ home. Our citizen scientists are diving and filming Wellington’s coastline, collecting crucial data to inform coastal management and to support marine restoration projects. We share our observations at events around Wellington so you can take a look under the waves without getting wet! Follow us on social media to find out about upcoming events.
Our goal
We want to keep Wellington’s marine life and ecosystems thriving, and help where we can. Regional council and local decision makers lack resources to monitor local change over time.
We collect observations and encourage others to document Wellington’s marine life using underwater videos and photos. We share our footage to do things like:
- understand the current state of Wellington’s marine ecosystem
- measure any future changes against what’s there now
- spot any problems in the ecosystem.
What is the 70 km Dive
Scuba diver and marine citizen scientist Nicole Miller is on a mission to dive and document 70 km of Wellington’s South Coast and Harbour and bring the diverse marine ecosystems to the surface. It is a huge challenge and requires an extraordinary team effort.
Dive Events
The Explore Your Coast volunteers will be diving at a different location on either Wellington’s South Coast or inside Wellington Harbour.
We’ll be following Nicole and her team and post updates as they go along. You can get involved, too. Join one of our many events to:
- dive, snorkel or swim along
- see kelp forests, sponge gardens and the marine life of the Taputeranga marine reserve
- find out about our coasts from marine scientists and experts
- from shore use our Virtual Reality headsets to see Wellington’s underwater world without getting wet.
The Explore Your Coast team and local community and sports groups run events along the featured Wellington coastline. Follow us on social media to find out when and where the events are and to get updates on the day for weather dependant events.
Fundraising
It takes dedicated volunteers and costly equipment to collect underwater observations and use the data to create momentum for positive environmental change. Explore Your Coast is a self-funded initiative and sponsorship has only covered a small fraction of our costs. We are grateful to our partners and the 2024 event sponsors and we are looking for more sponsors and partners to continue our work and create positive change.
Our Partners
This could be you!
Get in touch with us.
Donors & Supporters
- Haku Marine Ltd
- Kinanomics by EnviroStrat
- Digital Cactus
- Mantis Subs
- Oceansense
- Dive HQ Wellington
- Dive Wellington
- Friends of Taputeranga Marine Reserve Trust
- Project Baseline Wellington
- Underwater Biodiversity
- TS Marine Services
- Tidal Zone
- Karori Auto Services
- Move Massage & Bodywork
- Cheryl Godkin
- Victoria Quade
- Ingrid van Elst
- Chris Nipper
Explore Your Coast 2024 is an UN Ocean Decade event.
