Announcing Results of BCI Community Awards!

In Zanzibar, seaweed farming is an essential livelihood activity, but climate change is increasingly threatening yields. For seaweed producers, 80% of whom are women, working conditions are tough and income uncertain. Sea PoWer is a ground-breaking initiative rethinking seaweed farming to empower them. In partnership with women seaweed farmers, and thanks to a unique approach combining innovation with empowerment, Sea PoWer has developed a new seaweed farming technology – deep-water tubular nets – that has started to transform their lives, support their aspirations and increase the resilience of their farming operations. Thanks to the BCI Community Award for Ocean-Related Climate Solutions, Sea PoWer will extend its support to a larger number of women producers to adopt the tubular net innovation, while increasing their capacities, self-confidence, control and entrepreneurship to overcome marketing bottlenecks, make the most of their harvests, and reconnect with the sea.

Coastal seas are the beating heart of the ocean. The Philippines’ municipal waters sustain millions of people, providing food and livelihood. However, coastal overfishing and destructive practices are diminishing fish catches and destroying marine habitats. Climate change worsens this situation, making future fishing conditions—and life for coastal communities — uncertain. Together with its partners, Rare aims to build a network of climate-smart coastal communities in the Camotes Sea in central Philippines. With support from the BCI Community Award for Ocean-Related Climate Solutions, this project will help establish community-based coastal fisheries management through community engagement and behavior adoption approaches. The “One Camotes” campaign will promote sustainable fishing behaviors and deeper community involvement, so fishers and their families are better able to withstand the pressures of climate change. Helping individuals and communities change their relationship with nature unlocks direct benefits for people and the environment: improved catch and livelihoods, healthier and more productive habitats, greater social equity, and increased resilience to climate change.

The Ocean Guardians Project combines Pacific Island traditional stewardship with science and tech to build a nature-based climate solution. This project focuses on remote islands in Micronesia - strongholds of traditional knowledge and places of biological richness. These islands are biocultural powerhouses that produced celestial navigators and people with highly evolved ways of caring for their islands. Communities are the prime actors, deploying radar-based vessel tracking to prevent illegal fishing and visualization technology to monitor reef health. With support from the BCI Community Award for Ocean-Related Climate Solutions, this project integrates centuries of traditional knowledge and culture with modern science and technologies. Communities become master stewards in monitoring and protecting coral reefs from climate change and illegal fishing. This replicable model can be scaled across hundreds of islands. For this project, OneReef is collaborating with community partners in Palau, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Protected Seas.

The renewable energy potential in Talara is very high and will help minimize the use of fossil fuels. With support from the BCI Community Award for Ocean-Related Climate Solutions, this project will introduce electromobility and circularity in valuing fish byproducts of artisanal communities in Los Organos bay, Talara - Peru. The project has a systemic and gender sensitive collaborative approach with the San Pedro de Los Organos Artisan Fishermen's Guild especially women, representing 350 members and 120 vessels engaged in the fishing and harvesting of coastal species with artisanal methods. The project will also engage with the National Institute for Technology and Production (ITP) - CITEpesquero CALLAO, as well as renewable energy suppliers in the field of marine electromobility. This pilot project promotes a zero-waste approach in primary processing, introduces electromobility in the transportation of personnel in the bay, and strengthens local governance. The project will define a technological package for the economic reuse of waste and will demonstrate the viability of switching to clean energy. Futuro Sostenible aims to contribute to a resilient development strategy for the province of Talara and share experiences with other innovative projects.

BCI is pleased to help support the Blue Action Lab, which has officially launched on the beautiful island of Grand Bahama. The Blue Action Lab brings together leading innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers to turn the tide on climate change. Led by a global team of experts in the fields of impact finance, sustainable development, and environmental science, the Blue Action Lab is finalizing its first cohort of companies to pilot critical technologies in coastal resilience and ocean innovation. These solutions will not only help revitalize the economy of Grand Bahama after devastation from Hurricane Dorian and the global pandemic, but will also provide viable models for climate change resiliency to serve frontline communities, vulnerable coastlines, and vital marine ecosystems around the world. Offering streamlined permitting processes and access to coastal environments for solution testing and implementation, the Blue Action Lab empowers entrepreneurs and innovators to turn their urgently needed ideas for coastal climate resilience solutions into reality.

Te Pu Atitia combines traditional knowledge and science to inspire, teach, and reconnect Polynesian youth with their biocultural heritage. With support from the BCI Community Award for Ocean-Related Climate Solutions, and in collaboration with the two international research stations on Moorea, Te Pu Atitia will coordinate a democratic deliberation of island residents to accelerate Moorea’s just transition to sustainable development. Moorea 2030 is framed in reference to the commitments of French Polynesia and France to “zero exclusion, pollution, carbon, waste, and vulnerability”, and the U.N. 's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Te Pu Atitia’s first action will seek consensus for an ambitious yet feasible island energy strategy. Drawing on local and global expertise, innovations in clean energy, including marine renewables, will be showcased, and all stakeholders will have an opportunity to present their ideas and concerns. Moorea 2030 is conducted in the spirit of the Pacific tradition of Talanoa - an inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue - combined with best practices emerging from the worldwide “wave” in deliberative democracy experiments.