Blue Pioneers Accelerator Funds Experimental Projects by Our Fellows

Presented by Turtle Mama and her dedicated team, the Turtle Oasis Project (TOP) aims to accelerate marine turtle conservation to the seascape level through a Conservation Village Network. This initiative is driven by community empowerment and an innovative turtle currency system called "Tops," designed to incentivize collective behavioral change. TOP’s outreach and environmental education programs engage communities to raise awareness about turtle conservation. By building capacity within local communities, TOP empowers them to take active roles in conservation efforts. The turtle currency system, Tops, is a complementary currency system that motivates conservation actions among community members. Additionally, the House of Learning provides a space for sharing stories, lessons, and best practices. TOP also co-develops sustainable livelihood opportunities with community members and ensures the safety and growth of turtle populations through vigilant monitoring and nest protection.

TOP's innovative approach, inspired by the success of Eco-Pesa in Kenya, aims to replicate its Conservation Village Initiative across multiple communities, forming a robust network dedicated to marine turtle conservation.

Led by the dynamic team of Ran Shao, Kai Sun, Ho-Tu Chiang, Yiya Huang and Chunyu Liu, the Mall of Oceans (MOO) project seeks to transform public perception and engagement with marine life conservation. The project leverages the popularity of shopping malls in China, attracting millions of visitors each week, to promote marine education and conservation through interactive and bio-friendly aquariums. Key elements of the project include:

MOO focuses on creating engaging and scientifically accurate exhibits to educate and inspire visitors. The project offers hands-on activities such as building eco-tanks and learning conservation stories. Youth-led programs empower future leaders through field experiences, speech contests, and charity fundraising performances. Sustainable product showcases highlight eco-friendly products and conservation efforts within the mall setting. The MOO team also emphasizes international collaboration, partnering with the Turtle Oasis Project to promote conservation efforts and raise support across borders.

The MOO team aims to develop a leatherback turtle conservation case in Indonesia for public outreach in China, showcasing the importance of international cooperation in conservation.

Nori are red seaweeds that are wild-harvested mainly by women in Southeast Asia. Women harvesters often risk their lives in collecting nori, and these seaweeds are then processed crudely before they are sold in local markets. In the Philippines, nori is locally known as gamét and considered as black gold for its relatively high cash value. The prized commodity consumed as food with high nutritional value and used as medicine is. Nori is part of the diet and cultural identity of Filipinos in northern Philippines and is celebrated annually in the Gamet Festival. 

Local nori stocks in the northern Philippines are currently threatened with depletion, prompting the need to regulate harvest,  which may cause hardship in local livelihood, triggering community pushback against the regulation. It's a recurring vicious cycle, a typical wicked problem. On the other hand, locals have limited knowledge of post-harvest processing, product development, and untapped market opportunities, which may help improve their livelihood while potentially alleviating the negative impacts of unsustainable harvest to local nori stocks. 

SPIN wants to develop consumer demand for sustainably harvested nori while simultaneously empowering nori harvester communities to co-develop strategies and co-manage sustainable nori harvesting and market development, to break the present sticky equilibrium and shape a sustainable human-nature ecosystem.

SPIN will spend the grant money to engage in stakeholder consultations, co-develop management strategies with them, and facilitate a sustainable nori certification program and supply chain development, in order to prime a sustainable nori marketplace. Their work will also be receiving support from the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

SPIN is powered by a strong and capable team consisting of Wilfred J.E. Santiañez ‘23, a seaweed scientist and Flora Belinario ‘21 and Allan Apelo ‘21, community partnership specialists, in the Philippines, Try Hutomo ‘23, a food & sustainability scientist in Japan, and Mariska Sukmajaya ‘21, a sustainable finance specialist in Indonesia.

Like the Filipino women laboring on nori to live, economically disadvantaged small-scale fishers in Mexico are disenfranchised and disconnected from marine conservation management, rendering perennial conservation efforts ineffective. 

MexiFish believes co-management of local marine conservation areas with a triple bottom line framework is the right intervention to set the contesting stakeholders on a transition pathway to achieve ecological and economic benefits simultaneously. The core of the intervention is a traceability system stacked with triple impact (social, environmental, and financial) assessment and blockchain technology, designed to facilitate an emerging interactive marketplace that will instill responsible market behavior and community reinvestment.

MexiFish aims to develop the triple impact framework by mapping current local fishing practices, identifying potential cross-sector partners, and establishing sustainability certification criteria in year one. They will also do stakeholder mapping and outreach and education before building a traceability system and interactive platform as a prototypical marketplace to kickstart a sustainable circular blue economy.

MexiFish's excellent team consists of Noemi Espinosa-Andrade ‘23, a fisheries bio-economy scientist and consultant in Mexico, Rebecca Bird ‘23, National Marine Protection Program Lead in New Zealand, Lawrence Li ‘23, a community development specialist at Natural Resources Defense Council China, Kelvin So ‘23, an ocean conservation manager at WWF-Hong Kong, Ivan Martinez-Tovar ‘20, a fisheries scientist at Ocean Outcomes in the U.S.,  and Daniel Ruiz de Garibay ‘21, a political scientist and circular economy specialist in Malaysia. 

© Tim Kluckow 2018. Sea cucumbers are one of the few high-value fishery resources accessible to women foot fishers.

Photo source: wildbound.earth