The Transect Line - January/February 2025

Reef Check extends our thoughts and prayers to the people of Los Angeles and all those affected by January’s devastating wildfires. For information on how you can help, please visit lacity.gov/LAstrong.

Join Us! 2025 Kelp Forest Monitoring Trainings Now Open!

Reef Check’s Kelp Forest Monitoring training classes for 2025 are now open for registration. There are six opportunities in California, Oregon and Washington for divers to get involved as citizen scientists. Oregon will also be hosting three restoration trainings for those wanting to assist with kelp forest restoration. Visit our training page for details and to sign up! If you have been previously trained as a Reef Checker, you can sign up for one of our recertification classes to get ready for the upcoming survey season at http://calendar.reefcheck.org.

Reef Check Launches Kelp Forest Monitoring Program in Northern Chile

In January, Reef Check’s Jan Freiwald and Rodrigo Beas Luna, a marine ecologist working in Baja California, Mexico, traveled to Chile to collaborate with OCEANA Chile— the start of our joint Chile-California collaboration to launch a Reef Check kelp forest monitoring program for artisanal fisheries in three fishing villages, or Caletas, along the Northern Chilean coast. Over the past few years, the Chile California Council, OCEANA Chile, and Reef Check have worked together to develop a framework for monitoring Chile’s kelp forests and after multiple meetings, this trip marked the exciting on-the-ground kickoff of the program.

Reef Check’s Winter Webinar Series Continues

We have lined up some amazing talks for you to get your Reef Check fix over these winter months. Three talks are in the books, but there are two more webinars on the schedule:

March 12th 6-7p PST:
2024 Kelp Season Summary

April 3rd 6-7p PST:
Reef Check Baja (in Spanish w/ closed captioning in English)

Recordings:
Reef Check Hawai’i
Washington Kelp Farming
Dive into Science

Video Spotlight: Reef Check’s Dive into Science with Tolowa Dee-ni’ Ghvtlh-k’vsh shu’-srnelh-‘i~ (Kelp Guardians)

The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation (TDN), the original stewards of their land and sea, maintains a deep cultural and ecological connection to kelp forests. Due to colonization and climate change, TDN witnesses a decline in these vital ecosystems, impacting their traditional lifeways. To address this, Reef Check, with funding from Sea Grant through the Ghvtlh-k’vsh shu’-srnelh-‘i~ (Kelp Guardians) Program, trains TDN Natural Resources staff and community members in scuba diving and scientific diving through its Dive into Science program. This training enhances TDN’s capacity to monitor kelp forests using both Western scientific methods and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).

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Dive into Adventure and Protect Indonesia’s Underwater Treasures with Reef Check Italia

Indonesia, with its spectacular coral reefs and incredible marine biodiversity, awaits you for a life-changing experience. But this marine paradise is delicate and needs people like you to protect it. From September 6-13, 2025, you can join Reef Check Italia for its “Methods in tropical reefs monitoring” course on Bangka Island, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, where you can become a Reef Check EcoDiver and make a difference!

The Aqaba Marine Reserve and UNDP-Jordan Add Divers to Reef Check Monitoring Team

In December 2024, The Aqaba Marine Reserve-AMP hosted a Reef Check EcoDiver Training in Aqaba, Jordan with the cooperation of Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority-ASEZA and UNDP-Jordan. Twenty trainees from different professional backgrounds took part in the specialized course to be certified as Reef Check EcoDivers. The training was funded by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), designed and supervised by Prof. Dr. Mohammed M. Kotb (Reef Check Course Director and Reef Check Coordinator of Egypt and Jordan), and operated by Mr. Mohammad Al-Tawaha of UNDP-Jordan.

Results of the 2024 Reef Check Malaysia Surveys: Challenges and Opportunities

Reef Check Malaysia has just released their report on the 2024 annual coral reef survey program in Malaysia. From 2023-2024 there was a slight decline in Live Coral Cover (LCC), one of the key reef health indicators. This measures the percentage of the reef itself that is live coral – either hard coral or soft coral. And the 2024 surveys indicate that LCC declined from 45.9% in 2023 to 44.7% in 2024, continuing a trend that originates from 2022. Click below for more analyses and conclusions revealed in the report.