This month, a new EU-backed project set out to explore the connectivity and management of three coastal ecosystems: coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass meadows.
Funded through the Horizon Europe program, the initiative will leverage nearly $7 million (€6 million) to assess these three ecospheres as interconnected coastal ecosystems vital for biodiversity, climate resilience and human wellbeing.
Scheduled to run over a period of 4 years, this landmark project will bring together twenty interdisciplinary partners coming from 12 different countries across Europe, Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia.
The “Management of Coastal Networks Nurtured through Ecosystem Assessment, Collaboration and Technology”, or the m-CONNECT project, will study together these three ecosystems which have traditionally been explored only on their own.
Through this effort, the research team aims to gather insights on integrated biodiversity protection and unlock the full potential for carbon storage, climate resilience, and sustainable blue economic growth from these natural assets.
The goals of the m-CONNECT project
As shared in the project announcement, this initiative will explore the relations that exist within the Tropical Trio, investigating the different dimensions of connectivity between coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows, as well as their socioeconomic valuation.
m-CONNECT will operate with a highly collaborative approach, engaging with Indigenous Peoples and local communities and other local and regional actors.
The collaborators will co-develop science-based guidance for protecting and restoring coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows and how to enhance their ecosystem services.
This knowledge, in turn, will enable more integrated and effective management strategies for strengthening coastal protection and resilience.
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On its mission of coastal ecosystem exploration, the m-CONNECT project will unite academic and research institutions, government agencies, private sector entities, and civil society organisations, who will cooperate under the coordination of the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT).
ZMT’s Dr Sebastian Ferse commented, “By the end of the project, we hope to be able to quantify the extent and contribution of habitat connectivity. We also hope to overcome the artificially siloed approach to interconnected coastal ecosystems that is still widespread, making more data and information available to local communities, managers, policymakers and scientists.”
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