Marine Conservation Platform

Ocean Eye is a Marine conservation, data collection and financial transfer platform that offers a  solution for marine biodiversity conservation. It is used by impact minded marine tourism operators conscious tourists globally.

The working mechanism is based on animal sightings related micro payments made by marine tourists. These are transparently transferred to coastal communities through Ocean Eye, creating a strong incentive for unsustainable hunters of wildlife to turn into conservation allies globally.

 

Impact focus

Marine Biodiversity Impact

By making ecosystem service payments for marine animals a reality, we will create the first global financial payments mechanism for wildlife conservation that targets the problems of unsustainable fishing and poaching at its core. 

Our research shows that people are willing to pay for rare animals and this often couples with those most in need of protection such as sharks, rays, turtles, whales, pinnipeds, and large / colorful fish and even species such as octopus and other invertebrates. 

As an example 1kg of shark fins is expected to gain USD 600 but by seeing the same shark thousands of times its lifetime value far outweighs the one time payment. Our data and research shows clearly that through Ocean Eye we will be able to turn hunters of wildlife for conservation allies restoring local biodiversity and ecosystems. 

Ocean Eye team also contribute to citizen science and we can easily monitor the recovery of biodiversity through the data and payments collected without having to do additional expensive field surveys. 

Socio-Economic Impact

Coastal communities are increasingly struggling with livelihoods as overfishing, coastal pollution and climate change impact ocean productivity and often they have not been able to find a viable, alternative livelihoods to fishing and hunting.

With Ocean Eye, the tourists visiting marine wildlife will make small payments per animal sighted (based on the frequency of sightings and willingness to pay algorithm), which are then directly and transparently transferred to the coastal community or a trusted NGO locally. The community will be able to monitor wildlife sightings and money paid real time through the Ocean Eye, which for the first time ever creates direct measurable monetary value for wildlife alive.

 

Key Partners

Tourism operators that participate in marine activities that are based on viewing marine biodiversity, diving, snorkeling, whale watching, cruising etc. The marine tourism sector was worth USD 60 billion annually (pre-pandemic) and nature based tourism is poised to be the first sector to recover post pandemic. They depend on abundant marine life for their business model, but often feel hopeless in the face of increasing poaching, fishing and destruction of the natural environment. Ocean Eye provides them with tools to change this. 

Coastal communities are increasingly struggling with livelihoods as overfishing, coastal pollution climate change etc is impacting their livelihoods and environment and often they have not been able to find a viable, profitable solution in order to focus their efforts on restoring and protecting. 

Tourists are also stakeholders as their problem is the experiences are becoming less extraordinary as biodiversity decline continues. The underlying feeling of hopelessness of participating in destroying and pollution, not regenerating and helping with socio-economic benefits, which consumers want to act against. Ocean Eye enables this.

NGOs are also a key partner as Ocean Eye can work to strengthen local marine conservation projects such as marine protected areas and others and help bring incentives for coastal communities to support the conservation measures.