Plant baby corals with Livingseas
Livingseas aims to build a thriving marine coral reef ecosystem and train a local community that can maintain it for the long term. To do this, Livingseas constructs, installs, and monitors coral reef stars -- manmade structures made with biodegradable materials -- each of which hosts 18 baby corals.
Impact created by Livingseassince Jan 2022
- Impact contributed
- 6,260
- baby corals
- Number of coral stars
- 347
- coral stars planted
- Reef ecosystem services developed
- $ 18,779
- USD
About Livingseas 
Originally a diving school, Livingseas is a coral restoration and conservation social enterprise in Bali, Indonesia.
Livingseas aims to build a thriving marine coral reef ecosystem and train a local community that can maintain it for the long term. To do this, Livingseas constructs, installs, and monitors coral reef stars -- manmade structures made with biodegradable materials -- each of which hosts 18 baby corals.
Livingseas also runs a quarterly fellowship program which provides training to fellows -- who are often young students in the local community -- on open water scuba diving (with certification), marine science, construction and installation of coral reef stars, and monitoring and care for coral reefs.
Project Location
Project Stats
CO2 Carbon Capture
- 10
On land biodiversity
- 10
Underwater biodiversity
- 100
Social Impact
- 20
Gender equality
- 40
Why it matters locally
This project is situated near the famous Blue Lagoon beach in Padangbai, Bali, the cool and clear waters in the region provide an excellent location for coral regeneration. Coral reefs are critical for maintaining ocean ecosystem vitality to sustain tourism and fisheries in Padangbai.
Loss of coral in the area has also eroded the shoreline and increased risk from stormwater. Livingseas will be populating this shoreline area with more than 10000 coral fragments. Coral fragments are placed in man-made star structures made with biodegradable materials.
Constructed by the Livingseas staff and fellows, these stars provide protection to coral fragments against changes in ocean currents and a stable substrate with continual lateral flow of water. The reef stars, specifically, compared to alternatives like planting bottles, have shown a higher rate of survival and accelerated growth. Bamboo tags attached to each star allow the Livingseas team to monitor the growth of installed coral reefs for upto a year.
Why problem matters to outside of community
Coral reefs, dubbed the “rainforests of the ocean”, perform myriad critical functions in sustaining marine ecosystems. Globally, while populating merely one-tenth of the ocean, coral reefs are the home to 25% of all known marine life.
The World Resources Institute estimates that coral reefs add $1.6 billion in goods and services, from tourism to fisheries, to the Indonesian economy every year. Yet, due to increased warming, ocean acidification, and over-fishing, coral reefs are under rapid decline. Loss of coral reefs may cause irrevocable damage to the ocean ecosystem on which numerous people and non-human species depend on for their survival.
For the nearly 40% of the world’s population who live within 100 kilometres of the coast, risk from coastal hazards – stormwater, tsunamis, high tidal waves – is severe and exacerbated by global warming induced changes in the hydrological cycle. Coral reefs are an opportune investment in mitigating these risks by reducing wave energy by 97%.
Project Managers
Benefits
Just
A portion of sponsored funds per coral goes towards supporting a local women-first marine conservation fellowship program
Backed by science
Planting locations and coral species are shortlisted based on the best of marine science knowledge
Supporting the local community
Planting corals now will decrease coastal hazards, increase fisheries, and increase tourism, thereby supporting livelihoods for more than a third of Bali’s population.
The Sustainable Development Goals
Financial Transparency
We use a mobile app to confirm delivery of all funds to the field.
We will soon write these deliveries also on a public digital system, to allow listeners to follow the flow of donations from anywhere on Earth. Then we create tools for project managers to talk directly to the community about developments in the field. These peer-to-peer links open the black box of how referral dollars translate into real-world impact!
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