Mindful Diving did not arrive to an empty sea. Before we named ocean wellbeing, generations of agencies, scientists and guardians built the world we now serve. This is our map of gratitude — and our open hand.
Every standard is born into a lineage. Ours begins with a simple acknowledgment: the ocean already has guardians — thousands of them — and Mindful Diving exists to add one missing layer, not to replace a single one. This page is our living map of the organisations we admire, learn from, and hope to serve alongside. If your organisation is here, consider it a bow. If it should be and isn't yet, write to us.
The teachers of the water — dive training agencies
Everything we do sits on the foundation these organisations built over seventy years: safe, structured, joyful diver education. Mindful Diving is complementary to and independent of them all; agency standards, dive plans and instructor judgment always come first in our own published Standard.
- PADI — the world's largest diver training organisation — padi.com — and its conservation arm PADI AWARE — padiaware.org
- SSI (Scuba Schools International) — divessi.com
- CMAS (Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques) — cmas.org
- RAID — diveraid.com
- NAUI — naui.org
- BSAC (British Sub-Aqua Club) — bsac.com
Our curriculum is designed for adoption as a distinctive specialty within these systems, and our door is open to every one of them.
The keepers of safety and science
- Divers Alert Network (DAN) — dive safety research and emergency support the whole industry relies on — dan.org
- The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development — the scientific frame of our era — oceandecade.org
- Green Fins / The Reef-World Foundation — the environmental operating standard for dive and snorkel operators, which every Mindful Diving Center™ is encouraged to adopt alongside our Seal — greenfins.net
The guardians of the living ocean
Mission Blue and the Hope Spots
Dr. Sylvia Earle — oceanographer, explorer, and one of the great voices of the sea — won the 2009 TED Prize with a wish: ignite a global network of marine protected areas she called Hope Spots. Today more than 160 Hope Spots span the planet, from the Arctic to the crowded coasts of Florida — some pristine, some wounded and healing, all pointing to what the ocean can be when we choose protection. missionblue.org · @missionblue
Our aspiration is simple: that Mindful Diving Centers near Hope Spots become their most attentive daily visitors, and that The Current — our global ceremony each World Oceans Day — dedicates its dives to them.
The builders and defenders
- Waitt Institute & Waitt Foundation — more than fifty million dollars given to ocean conservation and over 1.2 million square miles of habitat protected, building marine protection from the community up — waittinstitute.org
- Oceana — the largest international organisation focused solely on ocean conservation — oceana.org · @oceana
- Ocean Conservancy — science-based advocacy and the International Coastal Cleanup — oceanconservancy.org · @oceanconservancy
- Sea Shepherd Conservation Society — direct action for marine wildlife — seashepherd.org · @seashepherd
- Parley for the Oceans — creativity and collaboration against marine plastic — parley.tv · @parley.tv
- The Ocean Cleanup — engineering the removal of plastic from rivers and gyres — theoceancleanup.com · @theoceancleanup
- Surfrider Foundation — protecting coasts and waves through a grassroots network — surfrider.org · @surfrider
- WildAid — ending the demand that drives wildlife trafficking, at sea and on land — wildaid.org · @wildaid
- Coral Triangle Initiative — six nations stewarding the planet's epicentre of marine biodiversity — coraltriangleinitiative.org · @coraltriangleinitiative
- Coral Restoration Foundation — restoring reefs by hand, coral by coral — coralrestoration.org
- REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) — citizen-science fish surveys any diver can join — reef.org
- Only One — digital storytelling and action for the ocean — only.one · @onlyone
- Blue Planet Society — volunteer campaigning against overfishing and pollution — @blueplanetsociety
- Fish Forever (a program of Rare) — community-led coastal fisheries — @fishforever
- Ocean Uprise — youth leadership for the ocean — @ocean_uprise
- Blue Oceans Program — @blueoceansprogram
Our lineage — the Foundation's position
Mindful Diving is an initiative of the World Happiness Foundation, whose position on SDG 14 — "Flourishing Oceans and Marine Unity" — frames the ocean not as a resource to manage but as a living partner in human flourishing. Read it here — and see how our research programme aligns with the e-co-flourishing framework published this year in The Lancet Planetary Health.
The open hand
To every organisation on this map: our Standard is published, our Toolkit is free, our centers pledge no-touch, low-impact diving as a certification requirement, and our stewardship module requires every advanced diver to choose a local guardian to serve. If there is a way Mindful Diving's growing community of centers and contemplative divers can be useful to your mission — surveys, cleanups, Hope Spot vigilance, funds, hands, presence — we are listening. The ocean has many guardians. We are honoured to become one of the newest, and to send divers to the doors of the oldest.
One ocean. Many guardians. Shared water.
If your organisation recognises itself anywhere on this map, there is a door built for you: For Partners & Allies.
The Surface Interval
A short letter for the time between dives — practice notes, research and news from the Institute.