How can I volunteer to help GCRA reef restoration projects?.
We are constantly developing coral reef restoration, fisheries restoration, shore protection, ecotourism, mariculture, and oyster restoration projects all over the world. When projects come through they usually are very small and happen on very short notice. Local groups find the money for a ticket and materials, and provide us a bed and food. We almost never get paid. The volunteers on these projects are almost all locals. The vast majority of these projects are initiated by local people who find us because they remember how their reef used to be, realize it is almost gone, want it back, recognize that any funding from outside will be too late, and that they only thing they can do to make a difference is to grow more corals themselves right away. These situations do not lend themselves to outside volunteers because these projects rarely can be organized long in advance, and anyway our key task is to train locals to care for or maintain the project, because this is the key to long term
