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Hani Bader is a diver who has a fascination with underwater photography, and spends hours capturing the colourful world beneath the ocean’s surface… how did your interest in the ocean begin? and how did things progress into underwater photography?

My father was a diver back in the 1980s, he worked in agriculture and marine resources, and I always used to see him going diving, and then bringing all the equipment back home with him. By the time I was about 15 years old, I had found out more about what he was doing, and so I asked him to teach me how to dive.

A few years later, in 1997, there was a project to clean the oceans around Bahrain staged by the Agriculture and Marine Resources directorate, and I wanted to take part, so they taught me everything I needed to know, and that’s when I got the proper hang of it.

A year later my uncle bought a film camera, but he didn’t know how to use it. I had used cameras before to take normal pictures, so he handed it over to me, and I used it until 2001.

Then I purchased a compact digital camera, at this time I was still working for Agriculture and Marine Resources. The camera lasted until 2007 when I had to change it due to the quality limitations of digicams.

So then I got a Nikon D200 DSLR camera that was very expensive in those days. I practiced using the full manual mode until I got a hang of it entirely. Then I purchased a waterproof housing from eBay, which was used, but in good condition. With time I was able to buy the full range of accessories. Then a few years later I got the Nikon D7000 along with a new waterproof housing as well. oral reefs are the forests of the oceans, providing food, shelter and a habitat for countless species of marine wildlife. However, in recent history, a combination of events and factors has had a hugely negative impact on Bahrain’s ocean habitats. The most significant of these was the massive global coral bleaching event back in 1997, where a sudden spike in sea temperatures had a catastrophic effect on reefs around the world. That has since been combined with bad fishing practices, and the damage caused by dredging, land reclamation, industrialisation and desalinisation.

What has been your best experience so far?

I went for a trip to Sharm el Sheikh, which helped me capture better images due to the clear sea, and different sea creatures that I saw. My technique of photography was to capture each image and see the flaws and ways in which I can improve. This helped me a lot.

Also, in 2013 I participated in a competition called “Our underwater competition” by USA magazine, which was international, I won first place, this was one of the biggest achievements to me.

What are your future plans in photography?

I would like to publish a book with my name and all the photographs that I’ve been taking throughout the years, which I am currently working on. My ultimate dream is to take pictures of sharks of all types.

The destruction of reefs, which can take hundreds of years to grow, has meant the decimation of ocean wildlife, but the General Directorate for Protection of Marine Resources and Wildlife have been taking measures to counteract this problem. Two of the first major steps were to call for a major survey of marine wildlife, and to introduce a legal requirement for environmental impact assessments to be completed before a large reclamation project was undertaken. This is where Reef Arabia, or more accurately its parent company, Environment Arabia, came in. The company was set up in 2002 by Bahraini businesswoman Halel Engineer, in response to a government call for specialists to survey Bahrain’s waters.

“So, Environment Arabia was primarily set up to do these environmental impact assessments and marine ecological surveys,” says Michael Aurora, one of the company’s expert divers and marine biologists. “When you do an environmental study that show habitats have been or will be destroyed, you need to give something back, or compensate for the damage, and the thing we kept coming back to was artificial reefs.”

Artificial reefs are structures made of a very durable marine grade concrete that can last hundreds of years in the sea, and which has a neutral pH level to allow for a varied range of species to flourish on and around it. The structures are built to imitate naturally occurring coral, and provide a haven for fish and a habitat for marine life such as algae, seaweeds, barnacles, and the other building blocks of a thriving reef.

Reef Arabia’s work is not just pioneering in Bahrain, but also in the rest of the world, as it is still a relatively new industry, and innovations are still being made. Their work with reef models made using 3D printers in cooperation with their Australian partners saw them featured in the US edition of National Geographic magazine last year.

“The very first reefs of this kind in the world were set up in Bahrain by us, and this is something we’re very proud of,” says Michael.

However, they face challenges on many fronts, not least through the overfishing of the country’s waters.

So what is the answer? Well, it could lie in Reef Arabia’s future plans for their company, which is a new division called Eco Arabia. A shift towards eco-tourism could be exactly what is needed. If resources currently being used for commercial fishing could be redirected towards a lucrative tourism industry instead, people don’t have to lose their jobs, and the oceans can still be protected.

This kind of tourism could also address the main issue, which is one of education.

The reefs being created, as well as the fish that populate them, are part of a delicate ecosystem that is under serious threat, and it is the responsibility of everyone who uses the oceans, whether for livelihood or recreation, to protect them.