Chapter 7 : Maritime Southeast Asia
The project successfully implemented a new collaborative approach to shallow water seagrass mapping, which has been widely shared with local stakeholders and scientists. The approach has the capacity to contribute to the globally standardized seagrass assessment, which is required throughout much of the dugong’s range
The Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), a multilateral partnership between Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands aims to protect marine resources (including dugongs) within the biodiverse region. CTI has recently been using citizen science in dugong population monitoring in the Lease Islands (Coral Triangle Center 2023).