#ConservationFreedivers
The network of Conservation Freedivers is made of like-minded freedive professionals, who share a common vision and abide by an established set of environmental and social standards. It acts to bring about positive change to the environment and local communities while guaranteeing fair working conditions to its stakeholders.
In order to continue to finance its programs and enable freediving instructors to live off their work more easily following the COVID-19 pandemic, Apnea Green started in June 2020 an online marketplace called My Freediving Instructor. It enables any certified professional to directly offer courses to students as an independent instructor anywhere in the world. The principle of the marketplace is simple, it is open for all (independent instructors and schools alike), and enables the direct marketing of freediving courses worldwide. When a student books a course, the market place charges the instructor a small fee, and the funds collected are used to finance our operations in the Philippines.
On the market place, a certain number of instructors have the ability to market their courses without paying any of these fees, by displaying their details to the students on their profile. This functionality is only available to individuals who have demonstrated a real commitment to work for the protection of the environment and/or the well-being of local communities. Should a student be willing to learn with such an instructor, he/she will also be able to do so by selecting the filter "#ConservationFreedivers" on the marketplace.
One of our objectives by forming this network is to create an additional incentive for instructors to regularly engage in activities such as free safety training for spearfishers, swimming courses for kids, monitoring of coral reefs through citizen-science or to create initiatives to reduce plastic waste such as opening a new Trash Hero chapter where they live and so on, and see this type of activities emulated around the community of freediving professionals around the world.
Over time the network will also serve an independent board of advisors, to create and implement initiatives combining freediving and environmental protection and/or work with local communities, and will be open to non-professional freedivers. A website will be made available at www.conservationfreedivers.org in order for the members of the network to easily share their programs and initiatives combining freediving and environmental protection and/or community work with others, exchange ideas on the subject and enable other freedivers in the world to launch their own initiatives using the ideas and best practices shared.
An interactive world map displaying the members of the network is accessible on the website of My Freediving Instructor. Instructors willing to communicate about the network of Conservation Freedivers while conducting their courses or their environmental/social activities can use the hashtag #ConservationFreedivers, so that interested individuals can follow them on social media.
A set of conditions to join the group of Conservation Freedivers is currently being edited with its current members, in order to be able to apply the same rules for everyone. At the moment, instructors who can demonstrate an outstanding commitment to environmental protection and/or work to the benefit of local communities and who are willing to join are encouraged to reach us.