Dear friends,

Without fanfare or significant publicity, Seacology throughout 2024 has continued its mission of protecting island cultures and habitats, including those in remote locales that few foreigners have ever seen. This is the case with Minicoy Island in the southwest part of the Lakshadweep archipelago, between the Indian mainland and the Maldive Islands. Our 2024 Seacology Prize winner, Mohammed Kolugege, is from Minicoy and has been instrumental in establishing a no-take reserve to protect an important tidal and reef area of Minicoy. Because the marine nursery areas were protected, within several years fishing dramatically improved in other parts of the island. 

Mohammed Kolugege has filled a small museum to house artifacts that evidence the history of the island. Based on the generosity of Seacology co-founder and Vice Chair Ken Murdock, we hosted Mohammed Kolugege and several of his family members in Berkeley for the Seacology Prize Ceremony on October 14, 2024. It was wonderful to welcome him and his colleagues from such a remote island so that his lifelong efforts for conservation could be recognized and celebrated. 

Seacology, which funded the world’s first mangrove museum in Sri Lanka, was able to reopen the museum (shuttered due to the pandemic and adverse economic conditions) through a crowdfunding campaign, kicked off with a lead grant from the Dr. Denis R Lyman & Diane K Robards Lyman Foundation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This year, hundreds of schoolchildren from throughout Sri Lanka have been introduced to the importance of mangrove forest conservation along the coasts of this beautiful island nation.

Seacology’s nationwide program of mangrove conservation has now been complemented by our funding of wildlife corridors in the interior of Sri Lanka, designed to protect leopards and other tropical rainforest fauna. The importance of these corridors in the interior rainforests has been emphasized through an educational program for the children of Sri Lanka, which we also funded. 

Education has also emerged as a key component in Seacology’s efforts to protect mangroves in the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Through our innovative sports program, we have successfully coupled grants of baseball and volleyball equipment with education of the nation’s youth on the importance of protecting the Dominican Republic’s precious mangrove forests. 

Finally, our efforts to protect seagrass populations throughout the world are really gaining momentum. From Barangay Bulanon in the Philippines, to the northern Cyclades Islands of Greece, we have fostered innovation in mapping, protecting, and restoring these precious ecosystems based on flowering plants that grow beneath the waves. They are extremely vulnerable to damage from boat anchors and are rapidly disappearing throughout the world. Seagrasses, however, sequester more carbon per gram dry weight than any other type of vegetation in the world and provide nutrition for sea turtles, manatees, and dugongs, as well as a nursery or thriving fish populations.

All of these efforts have been made possible through the generous support of donors like you. With projects in islands scattered across 70 countries, Seacology is providing leadership in protecting precious island habitats. Thank you.

Cordially,

Paul Alan Cox, Ph.D.
Chair, Seacology board of directors