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New Caledonia and Vanuatu Tourism Photography by Richard and Frederique Chesher

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New Caledonia and Vanuatu Tourism Photography. I love photography. By the time I was 10, I had my own darkroom and processed films and prints in black and white and then in color. In 1959 I began doing underwater photography in support of my activities as a professional diver and later as a graduate student in marine sciences. I assisted the professional underwater photographer Jerry Greenberg in south Florida and worked as an underwater photographer for Ribikoff Oceanics and Westinghouse. My first published images appeared in National Geographic Magazine in November 1966, and since then, my scientific and travel photographs have been published in so many books and magazines that I have long since lost track of them. My photo agents in London and New York send me lists of sales from time to time. In 2000, Frederique and I began production of travel and cruising guides to Vanuatu and New Caledonia and we specialized in hotel, resort, and tourism photogra...
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Giant Clam

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12 Steps to More Giant Clams Author: Richard Chesher, Ph.D. Organization: Marine Research Foundation Source: South Pacific Aquaculture Development Project, FAO of the United Nations Date: May 1991 The Falevai Community Giant Clam Sanctuary In 1988, the people of Vava'u in the Kingdom of Tonga set up The Falevai Community Giant Clam Sanctuary . It was located in the central island group of Vava'u and had 70 Smooth Giant Clams and 70 Rough Giant Clams. Eighteen months later, large numbers of young Giant Clams were found on the reefs. In 1990, even more young clams were found on reefs of the Central Island Group. His Royal Majesty King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV presented the village of Falevai with an award for the Best Community Giant Clam Sanctuary during the September 1990 Vava'u Agriculture Show. Encouraged by Falevai's success, ten other Vava'u villages requested assistance from the Fisheries Department. In 1990, three more villages joined Falevai...
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Dolphin Liberation

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  Vote for Dolphin Freedom The Lion Park Safari TV Dolphin Interview Sydney Australia, 1981 At the top of the stairs from the Bateau Chateau a gigantic, chauffeur driven, black Mercedes Limousine from the Willosy TV Talk show arrives to take me out to the Lion Park Safari to film a confrontation between Bulley and me and the Dolphins.  I get in and off we go to the Lion Park Safari. I sit alone in the back seat and, all the way out through the used car lots and the cow pastures in the highlands west of Sydney, I agonize about what "The Wanderer" is doing. The Oracle was certainly right about a surprise waiting for me on Saturday. Now I've got to follow the rest of its advice to the letter. The Mercedes glides into the parking area of the Lion Park Safari and I look around. Surprise, surprise, surprise, the demonstration Estelle promised for today, is not happening. Just the usual Saturday crowd wandering lethargically around. It turns out I am the demonstration, just litt...
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A New Year's Vision for 2026 - The Year of the Eye

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It is New Year's Eve 2026. I am sitting at the dinette aboard the yacht Moira, anchored in a wilderness bay where there are no houses, no people, no roads, no fences. Frederique is making digital drawings of mermaids, her fingers moving across her tablet with quiet intention. Café de Anatolia flows softly from our Bluetooth speaker—a voice carrying us across continents and time. Flash, our monstrous pussycat, sprawls across the table behind my rather ancient notebook, purring as if he holds the secrets of the universe. An excellent internet connection via smartphone means I am not really alone, though I am surrounded by solitude. This morning, Frederique and I walked the wilderness trail to Pipette Creek with a small, feral forest friend—now ten years old, a mother cat we rescued when she was tiny and wounded. She follows us as if we are her parents.  The day before, a huge low pressure system blasted New Zealand, sending cool winds northward into our anchorage. I feel them now—the...
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Location: New Caledonia
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