After a 2-week long negotiations by country delegates, and side events, about 50,000 participants attended online and in-person to share solutions, ideas and build partnerships. We heard many encouraging statements such as leaders representing 90% of the world’s forests pledge to halt deforestation by 2030. EU and US and other 100 countries pledge to cut methane emissions by 2030. The private sector also showed great engagement to help finance and limit warming to 1.5 degree Celsius. These are all great promises and we look forward to local actions and translating this to financing on the ground to support small NGOs...
Ocean Literacy: Launching of Ocean Adventures with Cory Volume 2!
The Philippines is one of the mega-diverse countries in the world with high species endemism. However, there is a lack of ocean literacy and limited access to marine environmental education in most of the educational institutions around the country. In 2020, we started an initiative of creating an educational children’s storybook that tackles the lack of awareness of coastal ecosystems, focusing on the importance of coral reefs. Together with the Blue Warriors, a youth club in Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental; Alimanguan Sagip Pawikan, a community-based turtle conservation organization in Palawan; and a local village in Dapa, Siargao, we have successfully donated...
The Oceanus Experience: The Intern Life by Avelyn Domingo
As a European Studies student with a budding passion for the environment, diving into a world of environmental and marine biology jargon was jarring. I remember hearing about Oceanus a year prior when I worked with Grounded PH and Oceanus’ collaboration for the Grounded Radio podcast episodes of Ocean Adventures With Cory and There Are Cities Underwater. To say that I was enthralled is an understatement which is why I was so ecstatic when I got the news that I could intern at Oceanus and be a part of their team. The Organization One of the things that surprised me...
Merging Technology and Mangrove Restoration: Mangrove.World Video Game
Why are we losing mangroves? The mangrove ecosystem is one of the most valuable ecosystems on earth. They help mitigate climate change with their capacity to store carbon in the atmosphere. However, the state of the world’s mangroves is declining by 0.2 to 0.7% every year. In relation to that, Super Typhoon Rai (Odette) greatly affected the Philippines last December 2021. The aftermath includes destroyed mangrove forests in most areas to a great extent leaving about P6.9 billion worth of damage. Under those circumstances, Oceanus partnered with the University of Manchester to incorporate our mangrove restoration project with technology. Introducing...
Wetland Restoration awardee by the Global Landscapes Forum and Youth in Landscapes Initiative!
After a competitive application with 220 applications across 54 countries, six young restoration stewards are chosen to lead different restoration activities all over the world. Over the course of one year, Camille Rivera, the co-founder of Oceanus Conservation is an ambassador for Wetland Restoration in her local community. Her project is “Community-based mangrove restoration in abandoned fishponds and other restoration sites”. Restoration of mangroves and involvement of communities to protect the habitat for wildlife and for the communities is the core of their project. The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on integrated land use, dedicated to...
Smart Buoy for Coral Reef Health
Real-time technology is now within reach these days. Our team deployed a real-time temperature sensor in the Municipality of Lian, Batangas which is an in-kind grant to monitor temperature changes that will affect coral reef health in the area. This is the first smart temperature buoy deployed in the Philippines for coral reef temperature monitoring! During our initial survey, fluorescing corals seen in the first and third photos is apparent. The buoy will be deployed for a year to track changes at below surface temperature (1 meter) and temperature at 10 meters. With the technical support of the De La...
Ocean Storybooks available in Spotify!
Ocean Adventures with Cory and There are Underwater Cities are both now in Spotify under Grounded Radio for Kids. We partnered with Grounded Radio in the goal of spreading awareness about our marine life especially mangroves and coral reefs with other local audience who uses podcast. It’s also another way to enhance local kids appreciation for our marine life. Have you already listened to it? We wanted you to take a break, inhale and take your mind to the vastness of the ocean. “There are Cities Underwater” is a mangrove storybook written by Ana Rita Silva, Pedro Moreira, Marta Reis...
What mangroves mean to the people of Salay, Mindanao: A perception survey to gather insights into the knowledge, attitudes and needs of the local community
Salay community member We recently conducted a perception survey with the Mangrove Organization in Salay, a municipality located in the northern region of Mindanao Island in the Philippines. It was a semi-structured survey to understand the people’s: (i) knowledge about mangroves, (ii) attitudes toward restoration efforts, and (iii) needs in the restoration process. Understanding their needs will help us develop informational and educational materials as well as training modules on restoration. Doing this also shows that we are a community and that we value the trust the people place in us by sharing their valuable information. As part of the...
Oceanus is featured in RESTORies!
If you are working in restoration, I bet you already heard of Restor. But to those of you who is unfamiliar of it, Restor is a science-based open data platform that connects all restoration practitioners around the world. It also features your site, what you need such as funding, volunteers and other necessities that your team needs to conduct restoration work. The most interesting about Restor is that it combines most scientific data in literature and came up with a visual platform. It shows you what species are present in your site, and how much carbon there is being stored....
Mangrove restoration work with communities
The Oceanus pillars for restoration work are as follows : 1) Biophysical assessment 2) Community participation 3) Institutional support from the Local Government Unit of Salay We believe these are the essential components for meaningful restoration work. After months of assessment, discussion, and agreement with the local government of Salay, we were able to purchase 1,500 seedlings and create a mangrove seedling nursery in Misamis Oriental. We planted 550 seedlings in the months of September to November 2021. The communities of Looc and Casulog, which are part of the Municipality of Salay, helped in planting Avicennia species in their areas,...
Featured in World Economic Forum : Ocean literacy
The pandemic may have halted a lot of people to do most of their conservation work, however, Co-Founder Camille Rivera was still able to make use of her time by joining the Coalition Wild Program. The Coalition Wild is a 6-month intensive leadership and capacity building program to train emerging young leaders with the set of skills to carry out their proposed projects. As to Camille Rivera, she created a bilingual ocean storybook, not only in Filipino and English, but other languages in the Philippines as well. At the moment, the book has already two other Filipino languages (Chavacano and...