Examining Scotland's marine habitats through a camera lens: uncertainty and change
Online talk, 7pm - 8pm.
For over thirty years Dr. Graham Saunders has been studying and developing ways to protect Scotland’s underwater world, both as an academic engaged in scientific study and as a past Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) Monitoring Officer and Policy Manager. A self-acknowledged compulsive underwater photographer, despite his initial disastrous childhood snorkelling experiment involving a plastic bag and a “borrowed” family Kodak Brownie camera, Graham rarely enters the water without something to visually capture the amazing diversity of life that thrive in Scotland’s seas.
At first, his pictures were the results of hurried efforts to grab little more that snapshots using some very limited underwater time at the end of a survey or scientific expedition. Increasingly, however, the value of the images in stimulating wider interest in the marine environment was recognised and now he is frequently required to be the “official” photographer and his images are widely used to illustrate scientific reports, news articles, web sites, campaign posters and educational awareness displays. Inevitably, he has accumulated a huge and varied collection of images that constitute a record of often rarely seen and sometimes highly vulnerable underwater habitats and species.
In this talk, Graham uses some of his images to reflect on his past and current work on studying and conserving Scottish marine habitats and species and to highlight some of the difficulties we are currently experiencing when trying to determine whether human activities are the cause of change in the marine environment.
Join us on 13 April, 7 - 8pm to enjoy this amazing photography and work from Dr Graham Saunders. Tickets are free, but please book in advance as spaces are limited.
Biography
Dr Graham Saunders is a marine biologist, commercially qualified diver and underwater photographer who has been actively engaged in the conservation, protection, and monitoring of Scotland’s marine environment for over 30 years. He started his marine survey career participating in, or leading research expeditions from Cambridge University to various parts of the world throughout the 1980s. These included extended periods in Belize, the Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia, and the Galapagos Islands. He later moved to Scotland to undertake a PhD at Heriot-Watt University on the impacts of metal contamination on marine sediment communities, during which, he also led the first UK government survey to document the largely unknown underwater habitats of the Falkland Islands.
While completing his PhD thesis, Graham was asked by Scottish Natural Heritage to carry out a review of the UKs rapidly increasing marine survey information and to assist in identifying potential marine areas of interest that would later become candidates for Scotland’s network of marine protected areas. Graham subsequently expanded this work at SNH’s request to provide a full evaluation of the state of the state of Scotland’s marine environment in 2004, before moving on to the task of designing monitoring strategies and managing surveys to be able to determine whether areas recently designated for conservation protection were being maintained in a favourable condition. During these surveys it usually fell to Graham to obtain a photographic record of the habitats or species that were the subject of the work and so, almost by accident, he has built up an extensive library of underwater images from around Scotland that are frequently used as an illustrative resource for a wide range of campaigning, conservation, academic and educational purposes (not least in some recent Scottish Seabird Centre displays!)
Graham presently operates as an independent consultant providing government-level policy advice and scientific survey support internationally, with extensive environmental management commitments in the Republic of Ireland, Turkey, and the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. He was also the North-East Atlantic Chair of the recent EU project to compile and evaluate an IUCN Red List of threatened European habitats – many of which are present in Scotland.
Although frequently busy overseas, Graham has maintained his association with Heriot-Watt University, NatureScot and a wide range of other UK agencies and organisations engaged in the study and protection of Scotland’s coasts, including providing technical input to some ambitious community science initiatives. He is often still called upon to be a member of various Scottish marine survey and monitoring dive teams and is still the designated official photographer.
Images © Graham Saunders