Current project
Crown of Thorns removal efforts in Raja Ampat
Trees to Seas funds projects focused on the vitally important, nearly intact Bird's Head Seascape of West Papua, Indonesia. We are trying to preserve the reefs, working with NGOs like Conservation International, the local Indonesian government, and an informal group of locals and people who come to Raja Ampat to help. Our own Dr. Phil Dustan, a world-renowned marine biologist and reef specialist who was the science advisor to The Cousteau Society and most recently helped shape, and was featured in the film, “Chasing Coral", is guiding the effort.
Some huge threats have been stopped in Raja Ampat to get to where it is today. The area’s economy pivoted away from shark finning, bomb fishing, and mineral extraction to eco-tourism, principally SCUBA diving. But with increased tourism has come new threats. Poor anchoring practices, reef damage from poorly trained and improperly supervised divers, and most important, a flood of nutrients bleeding into the water from the septic systems of resorts, Homestays, and Liveaboards.
Dr. Dustan has documented the beginning of the classic coral diseases that helped destroy beautiful Caribbean and Florida reefs, and that also have led to an explosion of Crown of Thorn's (COTS), which consume coral at an unprecedented rate. The future is not hard to predict, unless something is done, and done quickly
We need your funds and your donations to help with the COTS eradication, and with other critical efforts.
To find our Donation site, hover over Projects till you see the scroll down menu and click on Raja Ampat
Trees to Seas funds projects focused on the vitally important, nearly intact Bird's Head Seascape of West Papua, Indonesia. We are trying to preserve the reefs, working with NGOs like Conservation International, the local Indonesian government, and an informal group of locals and people who come to Raja Ampat to help. Our own Dr. Phil Dustan, a world-renowned marine biologist and reef specialist who was the science advisor to The Cousteau Society and most recently helped shape, and was featured in the film, “Chasing Coral", is guiding the effort.
Some huge threats have been stopped in Raja Ampat to get to where it is today. The area’s economy pivoted away from shark finning, bomb fishing, and mineral extraction to eco-tourism, principally SCUBA diving. But with increased tourism has come new threats. Poor anchoring practices, reef damage from poorly trained and improperly supervised divers, and most important, a flood of nutrients bleeding into the water from the septic systems of resorts, Homestays, and Liveaboards.
Dr. Dustan has documented the beginning of the classic coral diseases that helped destroy beautiful Caribbean and Florida reefs, and that also have led to an explosion of Crown of Thorn's (COTS), which consume coral at an unprecedented rate. The future is not hard to predict, unless something is done, and done quickly
We need your funds and your donations to help with the COTS eradication, and with other critical efforts.
To find our Donation site, hover over Projects till you see the scroll down menu and click on Raja Ampat
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Palolo Stewardship Program
The Palolo Stewardship program is aimed to prevent trash becoming Marine Debris from the watershed communities, Palolo Valley. It is our next step from the clean up dives we have been conducting to connect the seas to the trees. The main focus will be our public areas where no one takes responsibility for trash. Our schools, neighborhood streets and parks generate a lot of waste. Whatever does not make it into the trash, ends up on the streets, funneled into the gutters, and washed into the canals. Canals dump directly into the ocean with very little filtration. Any debris that isn't filtered out ends up in the ocean. Trees To Seas proposes a volunteer based effort to clean up streets, gutters and canals to prevent trash from entering the ocean. This effort would eventually be passed to local residents who will gain awareness through outreach and student projects.
Ocean Sciences Meeting 2014
On February 25, we spoke at the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2014 at the Hawaii Convention Center. The Ocean Sciences Meeting is an informational meeting where the largest assembly of international scientists (about 5600 attendees) present their research and give presentations over the course of one week. This was the first time Trees To Seas presented at a conference, and though that was a big deal, the true value was in the connections we made with the scientists. We would like to further those relationships in the near future. We know that there is a great distance between us, but we believe there is an incredible amount of potential in working together.
The day after the presentation we hosted a cleanup dive for the meeting's members. We had 15 volunteers show up at Magic Island. We all geared up and paired off into buddy teams and set out with our mesh bags to see what we could find on the reef. We were in the water for about an hour and found an array of marine debris; a quarry of plastic bottles, little food wrappers, and unidentified pieces of plastic that got stuck under rocks and in corals. Larger items that had some how accumulated on the reef were less abundant but took a lot of effort to remove.
The success was in the volunteers, the debris they had found and the publicity we all got. We have never been on a clean up where the divers worked so hard to bring up such difficult items, 2 car tires, 1 boat battery, and 1 outboard motor. The rest of the debris we categorized, weighed, and calculated it's percentage from the total weight of trash (39 lb).
Hawaii News Now covered the cleanup dive and interviewed some of the scientists from OSM who volunteered for the day!!
The day after the presentation we hosted a cleanup dive for the meeting's members. We had 15 volunteers show up at Magic Island. We all geared up and paired off into buddy teams and set out with our mesh bags to see what we could find on the reef. We were in the water for about an hour and found an array of marine debris; a quarry of plastic bottles, little food wrappers, and unidentified pieces of plastic that got stuck under rocks and in corals. Larger items that had some how accumulated on the reef were less abundant but took a lot of effort to remove.
The success was in the volunteers, the debris they had found and the publicity we all got. We have never been on a clean up where the divers worked so hard to bring up such difficult items, 2 car tires, 1 boat battery, and 1 outboard motor. The rest of the debris we categorized, weighed, and calculated it's percentage from the total weight of trash (39 lb).
Hawaii News Now covered the cleanup dive and interviewed some of the scientists from OSM who volunteered for the day!!
Ala Moana Beach Park: Marine Debris Removal and Reef restoration
This is our last cleanup dive at Magic Island. 5 divers collected the following over just one hour...
Plastic bottles- 114
Aluminum cans-69
Plastic wrappers and debris- 64
Boat debris- 40
Articles of clothing- 25
We also retrieved a garden hose and lots of fishing line.
Plastic bottles- 114
Aluminum cans-69
Plastic wrappers and debris- 64
Boat debris- 40
Articles of clothing- 25
We also retrieved a garden hose and lots of fishing line.
Coral Cleanups- Fishing Tackle
