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The recent stranding of an oilrig on Tristan has focused local and international attention on the importance and vulnerability of marine life around the Tristan islands and the paucity of information in this area.The main objective of this post-project is to enable and encourage the people of Tristan to make informed decisions leading to sustainable use of Tristan’s marine environment. The project will increase knowledge on the marine environment by developing an enhanced and updated database, based on both existing information and new data from previously unsurveyed areas. It will also strengthen the capacity of Tristanians to obtain marine biological information, by training them in underwater recording skills, including monitoring for alien species. A range of interpretive materials is planned to raise local and international awareness. We hope that the project will stimulate new income-generating activities on the island.The aim of the original Darwin project was to increase the control of Tristanians over the conservation and sustainable use of their biodiversity. However, the focus was on terrestrial wildlife, with only opportunistic marine work. This post-project proposes to extend the objectives of the original project underwater, by building on successful preliminary diving surveys undertaken around Tristan in 2004/05.