2012 - THE ADVENTURES BEGIN

After inventing the revolutionary underwater 360-degree SVII camera system, and launching underwater Google Street View to the world at the inaugural Economist World Ocean Summit in Singapore, marvelling our audience with a live underwater Google Hangout from the Great Barrier Reef, we kicked off our surveying on the GBR as part of the XL Catlin Seaview Survey - the most comprehensive scientific survey of the Reef in history. We had two teams working on five separate expeditions, a shallow reef team and a deep reef team going places no one has ever gone before.

2013 - GOING GLOBAL

Following the success of our east coast Australian GBR expeditions, we took the project global - heading off to the Caribbean region. 13 Caribbean countries and side expeditions to Bermuda, Galapagos, Monaco and numerous other locations made this an amazingly successful year. Whilst in Bermuda, we witnessed our first coral bleaching and launched the Global Reef Record, a free online research tool that collates and communicates the coral reef science of the XL Catlin Seaview Survey.

2014 - INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

We teamed up with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to do our first major survey in the US (Florida Keys) - that was in addition to our survey of numerous locations across the Coral Triangle, including the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Indonesia and Timor Leste. It was also a year where we partnered with UNESCO, held our first exhibition, surveyed the coastal and harbour regions of Sydney partnering with Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS), started community engagement work, re-visited the Great Barrier Reef after Cyclone Ita and got involved in several documentaries. 

2015 - THE LEAD UP TO COP21

Although we witnessed and revealed, partnering once more with NOAA, the start of the Third Global Bleaching Event in 2014, it really started to gather momentum in 2015. We revisited American Samoa twice to record both reef bleaching and reef dying for the first time using 360-degree photography. We had major expeditions in both the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and a major exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London. Then came Paris and COP21 and the hosting of a major coral reef side-event with guests including Sir David Attenborough, Sir Richard Branson, her deepness, Sylvia Earle, WWF's Director General Marco Lambertin and XL Catlin Seaview Survey’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

2016 - THIRD GLOBAL BLEACHING EVENT CONTINUES

The Third Global Coral Bleaching event continued throughout the year and we were the only team tracking it around the world. It was the year Jeff Orlowski and the Exposure Labs team finished their filming for Chasing Coral, started our Seaview Education program with Google, and expanded our focus from documenting and revealing the problem to also creating a solution: a global plan to save corals - the 50 Reefs initiative.

2017 -  50 REEFS LAUNCHES, CHASING CORAL GETS A GLOBAL NETFLIX DEAL

2017 started with the team on the big screen as Chasing Coral made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the US Documentary Audience Award. Soon after, we launched our next big collaborative initiative, 50 Reefs - a global plan to save coral reefs - at the Economist World Ocean Summit in Bali. And we continued to track the Third Global Bleaching Event as it hit the Great Barrier Reef for an unprecedented second year in a row.

2018 -  Most remote atoll revealed virtually

Launched at EARTHx in Dallas, we put one of the most remote coral atolls in the world, Palmyra Atoll, on the virtual map with a suite of 360 content including a Virtual Reality video experience. Because Palmyra’s reefs are as close to pristine as those found anywhere else in the world, with minimal human disturbance, the atoll serves as an ideal natural laboratory, providing scientists with a baseline for what a healthy coral reef ecosystem should look like. The team continue to reveal these environments for all to see and push for an increase in marine protection.

2019 -  new vr film, new FESTIVAL, NEW hope spot announced

Our second Virtual Reality film, Guardians of the Kingdom, launched at EarthX in Dallas and during the year, toured festivals and events in the US and Europe. Arcadia Earth integrated the film into their multi-sensory AR exhibition/retail experience in New York, launched to align with Climate Week. Our relationship with the Ocean Lovers Festival began, and together as joint Hope Spot Champions, we celebrated the announcement of Sydney Coast as a Mission Blue Hope Spot at the inaugural festival.

2020 -  the world goes virtual

Mere days out from the second Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival launch, the world goes into pandemic lockdown postponing the formal launch of our Out of Sight, Out of Mind touring interactive exhibition. The world learns to go virtual for education and entertainment and our Virtual Dive outreach, engagement and education work becomes ever more popular. In celebration of World Oceans Day, partnering with Google, we launch our Ningaloo Reef Street View collection. Our 50 Reefs work extends, with a series of Impact Investment Reports launched in September with the purpose of driving critical incremental investment into these 50 key coral reef regions around the globe.

2021 -  our google art and culture collection launches

As the border closures, travel restrictions and lockdowns continued the world over, our online digital storytelling continued to engage and educate. Extending our ongoing relationship with Google, on World Oceans Day, we launched our Google Art and Culture collection. Later in the year, to support the Interspecies Assembly at the 76th UN General Assembly we launched our Blue Fleet collection which focuses on humble #siphonophores and how much can be learnt from them about coexisting with other species. In September, Bloomberg Philanthropies Vibrant Oceans Initiative Landscape Assessment report is released, validating the 50 Reefs initiative, revealing 26 implementing organisations and eight funders are performing work directly under or inspired by the 50 Reefs framework.

2022 -  Out of Sight, Out of Mind launches and tours

March 2022 sees the launch of our interactive touring exhibition, Out of Sight, Out of Mind at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney to coincide with the Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival Blue Solutions Summit. East coast Australia is subjected to massive storms and flooding delaying the 2022 Volvo Oceans Lovers Festival to April 2022. Out of Sight, Out of Mind continues its tour around Australia whilst expeditions and VR filming work are concentrated around New Caledonia’s Natural Parc of the Coral Sea: one of the biggest marine protected areas in the world in partnership with Odyssey and the Government of New Caledonia.

2023 -  vr film launches, more exhibition tours and further festival expansion

The March 2023 Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival expands, drawing a larger crowd. The Sydney Coast Mission Blue Hope Spot website is launched to align with the Festival. Commissioned by the Government of New Caledonia and in partnership with Odyssey, our four VR films, encompassing underwater, topside and aerial of the fully protected and ultra-remote coral reefs environments: Walpole Island and Astrolabe Reefs, were released mid-2023 for use for in-country awareness, educational programs and school activations.

2024 -  so far this year - OCEAN LOVERS festival success, EXHIBITION tour CONTINUES, coral reef bleaching heavily in the news

As the distressing news comes from the Great Barrier Reef of mass coral bleaching from north to south, the March 2024 Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival jackpots with over 40,000 visitors. The festival was an excellent opportunity for our Out of Sight, Out of Mind exhibition to engage with both primary and secondary school students ahead of the main festival weekend. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the volunteers who assisted us over the festival days. The next stop for our interactive touring exhibition is Impact X Sydney in April 2024 as the world receives confirmation from NOAA that the Fourth Global Mass Bleaching event is unfolding.

Please contact us if you are interested in our imagery.

Underwater Earth was formed in 2010 in Sydney, Australia.
Co-founders of both Underwater Earth and The Ocean Agency, Lorna Parry and Christophe Bailhache,  continue to lead the founding Australian registered charity, Underwater Earth.

Founder Richard Vevers left Underwater Earth and located to Washington DC in 2017 from where he currently runs an unrelated US operation called The Ocean Agency.