These images were taken during a Natural Resource Assessment Survey (NRAS) expedition to the atoll of Ailuk, Marshall Islands in 2006, as part of the efforts to document its seldom explored reefs and bring environmental awareness and conservation strategies to the local community. This remote atoll boasts great biodiversity and a large extension of unspoiled reefs. Ailuk harbors the last authentic community of Marshallese islanders to have kept the old tradition of building and navigating outrigger canoes. Local inhabitants can mainly subsist from managed fishing and locally grown copra, pandanus, and breadfruit.