A few weeks ago, I finished working with the Bay Islands Conservation Association on Utila island and headed back to St Andrews. Having completed this last stage of my project I wanted to write one final post reflecting on the accomplishments of the year.
My project focused on the resilience and adaptation of coastal ecosystems to climate change. Coastal ecosystems are at the forefront of climate change. They represent significant carbon stores, the protection of which is essential for limiting global warming, and they produce numerous additional ecosystem services on which we rely. However, due to anthropogenic activities they are also increasingly threatened by issues such as sea level warming, ocean acidification and coastal development.
During my studies in Biology and Sustainable Development I became fascinated with this topic, studying it in the context of UK saltmarshes. However, I wanted to go beyond this to understand how approaches to coastal climate change adaptation play out across various important coastal ecosystems, namely seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and coral reefs. With the increased push for global frameworks and commitments for marine climate adaptation it is essential for this generation of climate change practitioners to understand how effective coastal adaptation is implemented across different contexts, so that the policies and frameworks put in place at global and national levels include actionable objectives for different environments. With the generous funding from the R&A I was able to spend a year contributing to this subject area.
I began my year close to home on the Isle of Arran, where with the Community of Arran Seabed Trust I trailed new scuba-diving methodologies for mapping the extent of seagrass beds and assessed their carbon storage abilities through collecting sediment cores. (You’ll soon notice that I spent much of my time this year underwater). In the UK’s current climate change commitments focus is increasing on coastal carbon sequestering ecosystems, and thus understanding the role of seagrass beds in climate regulation may lead to their enhanced protection and restoration.
Next, I visited Misión Tiburón, the 2023 winners of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment in Costa Rica, with whom I explored carbon stock assessments in mangrove forests. A highlight of this was seeing 10 hectares of forest newly added to their restoration project thanks to the funding they received through the Prize for the Environment.
From Costa Rica I crossed over to Panama where I worked with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute trialling whether corals’ resilience to thermal stress can be improved by supplementally feeding young corals probiotics, aiming to rebuild more resilient reefs in areas heavily depleted by coral bleaching. You may be wondering, how do you feed corals? Well, in a rather silly manner you cover a coral colony with a zip lock bag and inject a solution of vitamins into it with a syringe, then giving it 20 minutes to ‘eat’ before removing the bag.
Next, I made a big move from the Caribbean tropics to Chilean Patagonia, where I saw how an increasingly unpredictable climate influences small-scale fisheries and the challenges that go into fish stock assessments. Lastly, in Honduras I put together my experiences from earlier stages of the project and supported a local NGO BICA in implementing a large-scale reef restoration, using scientific diving and citizen science methods, resulting in over 200 coral fragments being successfully moved from a coral nursery to a natural reef.
Amongst all these wonderful experiences there were also some challenges. In Costa Rica I travelled 20 hours to reach a Polish embassy to vote in my country’s national elections, making it within an hour of the voting deadline. In Panama my plans were held back a month due to massive political protests. There were many sleepless nights on airport floors, many buses that never arrived and long hours of being quite frankly completely lost and confused. But even these stressful situations taught me how to be resilient and adaptable, and in hindsight I am in a way grateful for them.
Since returning, many of my friends have asked me ‘what was your favourite part of the year’? I hope that you can understand from my brief overview that it is impossible to pick one moment. From each organization that I worked with I gained irreplaceable hands-on experiences that I could never gain from a textbook. In each country I visited I witnessed unique cultures and met passionate conservationists who shared my values, despite living in very different corners of the world. This experience has opened future opportunities that I would have never imagined to be possible this time last year.
What I think makes this scholarship so unique is its lack of restriction. It is open to students from all disciplines, all you need is a passion and a good idea. It gives young people the freedom to form their own plan and to explore the world, building global networks and to gain independence and confidence in their own abilities that is then carried forward into future studies and careers.
Having completed this scholarship I am excited to share that my next step is beginning an MSc in Climate Change: Managing the Marine Environment at Heriot Watt University. In this program I will focus on coastal ecosystem restoration and with the scientific diving experience I have gained this year I will be a member of the university scientific diving team. I am excited to carry forward what I learnt throughout this year into this programme. Throughout the summer I am also continuing to work remotely for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, beginning data analysis of the coral supplemental feeding project. I hope to continue collaborating with them and the other organisations I met this year in future projects.
I cannot overstate how life changing this experience has been. I would like to sincerely thank the R&A and the University of St Andrews for this opportunity, and I wish the next cohort of R&A International Scholars’ luck with their travels!
Comments