SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — July 4th, 2008 — Conservation International, The Coral Reef Alliance, and Wetpixel.com have announce the 2009 Raja Ampat Entrance Tag Design Contest.

If you have the perfect photo that captures the excitement and beauty of Raja Ampat diving, enter the 2009 contest for a chance to have your image printed on the 4,000 park tags that will be attached BCDs of visiting divers!

In addition, the first place winner will receive a 7-day, 6-night, all-inclusive dive trip* to Raja Ampat’s original eco-resort at Kri, kindly donated by Papua Diving. (*excludes airfares)

2nd and 3rd place winners will receive a fabulous book about Raja Ampat by 10 of the world’s leading underwater photographers.

To enter the contest, submit up to 2 photos or graphic designs per contestant before midnight on Thursday, August 28, 2008. After finalists are chosen, you — the public — will vote for the best image or design until September 25, 2008. Winners will be announced on October 1, 2008.

For rules and submission details, please visit:
http://wetpixel.com/raja

For more information about Raja Ampat, visit:
http://www.diverajaampat.org.

In 2006, Misool Eco Resort helped to create a Marine Protected Area in Raja Ampat encompassing 200 sq km of sea surrounding the resort. Hook- and line-fishing, dynamite- and cyanide-fishing, long-lining, netting, shark finning, harvesting turtle eggs and other similar activities are prohibited in the MPA.

The good news is that local villages and government support these measures. The bad news is that non-local commercial fishing enterprises aren’t as conservation-minded.

To address the need to patrol the boundaries of the MPA, the resort is raising funds for the Misool Ranger Project in conjunction with French charity Precious Planet. For every 50 Euros donated to the Misool Ranger Project, donors will be entered into a lucky draw for a free stay at Misool Eco Resort.

The deadline for entry is 1 August, so contribute to a good cause and secure your chance to win a free stay at the resort!

For more information, click here.

Attention photographers and videographers: the deadline for the Our World-Underwater photo and video contest is just around the corner! Get your images and videos in before January 15, 2008. DEEP Indonesia’s deadline follows just one month later.  As a reminder, we’re giving away over $80,000 in combined prizes, including 30 dive expeditions and a bunch of underwater photography gear.

Winning images will be prominently featured in issue 3 of Wetpixel Quarterly and dozens of other print and online publications, including Sport Diver, Dive (UK), FiNS, Scuba Diver Australasia, X-Ray, UwP, and more.

Entry forms and detailed guidelines can be found at underwatercompetition.com.

The deadlines for two photo contests being run by Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide are coming up. The deadline for the Our World Underwater 2008 photo contest is 13 January 2008, and for DEEP 2008 on 15 February 2008.

Get your entries in asap to compete for US$80,000 in prizes! In addition, contest winners will be published in a special issue of Wetpixel Quarterly. For rules and guidelines see http://underwatercompetition.com

The votes have been tallied, and the winner of the Raja Ampat tag design contest is FiNS Contributor Alex Mustard! His winning shot of a pygmy seahorse will be printed on all 2008 Raja Ampat Tourism Entry System tags.

More information on the contest and results here. Keep an eye out for our Raja Ampat feature in the upcoming FiNS Magazine issue 6.6.

The finalists for this year’s Raja Ampat entrance tag design contest have been selected. Public voting decides the winner of the contest, so head over and cast your vote from now until 19 October!

The 3rd annual Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide International Underwater Photo and Video Competition is being held in association with Our World Underwater, one of the largest consumer dive shows in the United States.

The contest features over US$50,000 worth of amazing prizes from world-class sponsors for 7 stills and 2 video categories, open to all skill levels. Two FiNS contributors, Eric Cheng and Tony Wu, are among the list of distinguished celebrity judges, which includes Berkley White, Ric Frazier, Chuck Nicklin and Mary Lynn Price.

Check out the contest page for information on how to enter (Note the deadline, 13 January 2008; winners to be announced at the Our World Underwater show 15-17 February 2008) plus the list of incredible prizes, and while you’re at it, take a peek at last year’s winning entries.

Congratulations to Tan Soo Seng in Singapore, who’s the lucky winner of our Christmas Island giveaway worth A$1600! We’ll be in touch with you soon.

If you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, download this article to read more about Christmas Island.

And finally, a big thanks to everyone who entered the lucky draw…and keep an eye on the FiNS Blog for more exciting trips and prizes!

Would you like to win a fabulous free trip to Raja Ampat, and do your part to help protect the seas there too? Here’s your chance.

Enter the official Raja Ampat Entrance Tag Design Contest and you might find yourself on the way to this sought-after destination, as well as having your photo or design on BCDs of every visitor to the park in 2008.

See Wetpixel.com for more details.

Losin is a small island located 106 km from the mainland of Narathiwat, Thailand, where the diving is great and your chances of seeing big pelagic life (whale sharks, mantas, guitarfish, eagle rays, etc.) are high.

The only way to get there, however, is via a liveaboard. The good news is that once a year,many liveaboard operators in Thailand run dedicated trips to this beautiful remote island…and that time of year is approaching soon!

If you’d like to visit Losin, contact diveindeed in Bangkok. They’re running a trip to this unique destination on 15-16 September 2007 with MV Scubanet.