Reef Doctor

About us

Reef Doctor is a UK-based, non-profit organisation that has been conducting conservation and social development in southwest Madagascar since 2002.

Our Mission
To create sustainable futures through a holistic, science-based approach to conservation

Our work
• We marry conservation with social development by facilitating sustainable livelihoods and education as a countermeasure to over-exploitation.
• Our goal is to protect both marine and terrestrial habitats, and provide a self-sustaining pathway to poverty alleviation in the impoverished rural communities of Southwest Madagascar.
• We have worked in the Bay of Ranobe for 15 years, establishing long-standing harmony and effective partnerships with local communities.
• Research: We are collecting data on the health of marine habitats and fisheries to advise local communities, the Malagasy government, and regional and global scientific communities.
• Conservation: We protect and manage a diverse mix of habitats including coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, and terrestrial forest.
• Restoration: We grow and transplant coral, and implement artificial reefs in an attempt to restore heavily damaged coral reefs and the associated wealth of biodiversity.
• Sustainability: We create and nurture community-led initiatives to encourage sustainable fisheries management and turtle conservation.
• Education: We educate and involve local communities in conservation and sustainability to promote effective environmental stewardship.
• Poverty Alleviation: We provide a pathway out of poverty through the development of sustainable alternative livelihoods in rural communities.
• Equality: We empower marginalised women to promote gender equality.
• Social Development: We seek to improve the welfare of impoverished people that are heavily dependent on diminishing resources. Local communities are at the heart of all our projects.

Projects:
• Conservation: We conduct apply sustainable conservation to preserve and restore a range of over-exploited habitats and natural resources. With focus on coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass, fisheries, turtles and spiny forest.
• Sustainable Livelihoods: We facilitate and encourage sustainable livelihoods to alleviate natural resource over-exploitation and reduce poverty. With focus on aquaculture, sustainable charcoal, reef tourism and mangrove-related projects.
• Social Development: We seek to improve quality of life within impoverished communities in the Bay of Ranobe. Our focus is on education, community improvements, gender equality and sports & social.

Roderick Stein-Rostaing is the UK-based Director, Emma Gibbons is the Madagascar-based Director and Sergei Toscani is the UK Volunteer Programme Coordinator of Reef Doctor.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.