Threatened - the blue shark

Got a camera? Got a dive certificate? UK-based charity Wildscreen needs your help for ARKive, gathering images of all the world’s threatened marine animals and plants.

ARKive promotes conservation and builds environmental awareness through wildlife photographs, films and sound clips – which are being pledged by many of the world’s top photographers and filmmakers.

The aim is to produce a global, centralised record of all 16,928 species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This will provide an invaluable conservation tool – a quick, easy and free online source of information for anyone keen to learn more or to help with conservation efforts.

Many divers, amateur and professional alike, take fabulous photographs of a broad range of threatened species, so this is an opportunity to work with ARKive and help the wide variety of amazing animals and plants that give pleasure to so many divers.

TV presenter and passionate diver, Kate Humble, is a keen supporter of ARKive.

I love that first plunge, the first glimpse through the mask of the underwater world. I encourage divers to donate their images to give ARKive the best means possible in their quest to raise awareness for the world’s underwater creatures.

Her celebrity scrapbook on the ARKive website focuses on diving and includes some of the species she has been lucky enough to see whilst underwater for pleasure and work (such as when filming Springwatch).

The ARKive team are searching for a huge variety of marine materials – and the more unusual and obscure the species, the better.

A list of the ‘most wanted’ images is published on the ARKive website www.arkive.org and to check out if your species appears on the Red List .

Anyone wanting to donate images can e-mail ARKive’s media research team – arkive@wildscreen.org.uk, or upload here using the tag ‘marine’.

Vulnerable - The porbeagle shark

So far around 38,000 films and images have been given a safe-haven in the ARKive digital vault. More than 3,000 media donors are actively contributing to the project, from major broadcasters, film and photo libraries to conservation organisations and academic institutes, as well as many individual filmmakers and photographers.

All media is donated freely on the understanding that it will be used as a resource for scientists, conservationists, educators and the general public, and not for commercial purposes.