In Indonesia, a local resident and a marine scientist are leading a group of local teenagers to replant seagrass to protect their village from coastal erosion.
Globally, seagrasses are disappearing at alarming rates, losing as much as 7% of their area each year, according to the IUCN.
Seagrass restoration initiatives are widely considered to benefit coastal ecosystems and communities, especially in the face of increasingly frequent temperature extremes and storm events that are expected to exacerbate seagrass mortality.
Indonesia is an important player in seagrass conservation, and in Raja Ampat archipelago, the coastal ecosystem has been declining due to climate change impacts and development.
This has led Linani Arifin, a resident of West Yensawai village in Raja Ampat, and Almira Nadia Kusuma, a young marine scientist with research experience in seagrass, to collaborate on a project leading a group of teenagers in West Yensawai to replant seagrass, to help protect the village from coastal erosion.
