Cousteau's Sons Carry on Father's Marine Conservation Legacy through Website and TV Series

Pierre Cousteau, the youngest Jacques Cousteau's sons, has set up an online platform where divers and snorkellers will be able to monitor marine life and interact through scientific research, multimedia and postings of divers' personal appreciations of underwater conditions during their scuba diving holidays or submarine expeditions in an online community.

The son of the world famous French marine explorer, ecologist, photographer scientist, filmmaker and author, created the non-profit organisation, Cousteau Divers, to provide a portal for scuba diving enthusiasts to use so they can find out more about the world's oceans.

The divers can post images and report on the marine environment that they encounter during scuba diving holidays or scuba diving expeditions to share with other online users.

Image by: Duiken Redactie, on Flickr.

With 20 million divers across the world, Cousteau believes that the website will lead to the protection of the world's marine life through divers' regular postings, pictures and findings.

Cousteau is aiming to launch an iPhone app by the end of the year, which will allow divers to report the observations straight from their phones after discovering them through snorkelling and scuba diving adventures.

Image by : melissa.fiene, on Flickr.

Pierre's older brother, Jean-Luc Cousteau, lives in Los Angeles in the United States and has also been busy following in his father's footsteps over the years. He is the head of Ocean Futures Society, an organisation which is committed to oceanic research and conservation and he is also planning a new documentary series that will focus on ocean life and the promotion of marine conservation.

The TV series is called "Ocean Alive", and will feature 12 documentary films and a special feature film, all of which Cousteau is hoping to film in 3D.

"We will help the audience to discover the beauty of the waters off California, and through them the challenges facing humanity in the conservation of the oceans," Jean-Michel Cousteau explained recently.

Jean-Luc is hoping that the films will motivate viewers to be "better stewards of the marine ecosystem. Because if there is no water there is no life."

"We will show this through our adventures and explorations," he added.

Their father, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was famous for pioneering undersea exploration and photography. He invented the Aqua-Lung, a mechanism that allows divers to swim underwater while breathing compressed air. The component is still used in modern scuba diving equipment today.

The ocean explorer wrote 50 books and travelled to some of the world most beautiful scuba diving destinations on a converted minesweeper called Calypso.