Judi Lowe is a Australian PhD graduand in marine science. As a Certified Practicing Accountant and a Lawyer, Judi has held executive roles with the Australian Government and Australia’s largest fishing company. Within her public and private sector careers, Judi focused on commercial fishing, then finance, drafting legislation for marine conservation, fisheries compliance, threatened species and other marine conservation issues.
Bajo children of Wakatobi, Indonesia
In tandem with her professional career, Judi became a dive instructor more than 20 years ago, instructing on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. On leave from her executive role, Judi volunteered on Australian Aid programs in the Philippines and Vanuatu, developing marine tourism for fishing villages. Judi holds a commercial boat Master’s rating and is a seasoned dive tourist, diving 20 tropical countries around the equator. She wants to dive more but she keeps going back to the same countries. Reflecting on her executive career, Judi realised ‘No-one is ever going to pay me to do exactly want to do.”, so she resigned to study full time. For her PhD, Judi returned to her lifelong passion for dive travel to the tropics and the lives of local fishers who live in poverty along those coral reefs.
Judi is particularly interested in whether dive tourism can contribute to the conservation of coral reefs, fish and marine mega fauna (sharks, whales sharks, whales, manta rays, dugongs and turtles) and livelihoods for local fishers. What does best practice dive tourism look like and how do you do it? Judi’s research answers these questions.
