This grant supports Project QR restore in seeking formal registration of their nonprofit, and in taking the first steps to restore the coral reefs off the coast of Quintana Roo by implementing a PADI Coral Reef conservation training course for local Mayan conservationists they've partnered with, as well as SOA Mexico hub leaders.

SOA Pacific Islands is proposing to organize their second Regional Youth Conference which will target youth ocean leaders/individuals from all over the Pacific to participate in the Conference. They will host the conference physically in Fiji and have youth participants from other Pacific Island Countries join in virtually for a 2-day session on Ocean Health & Sustainability. They will then host a mangrove planting and beach clean-up activities in at least 6-10 PICs as follow-up to the conference in the same week. The conference will be lined up together with the Regional Conference of Youth and SOA Pacific Hub will lead the sessions on Ocean with the overall team, a outcome document will be drafted and later presented to delegates from COP26.

Beatriz, founder of the Brazilian nonprofit Marulho, leads the recovery of fishing nets from the seafloor to turn them into salable products benefitting the local community.

Dahlia is researching the causes and effects of the decline of the Marmara Sea in Turkey and producing video content (social media as well as a documentary) on the subject. As a budding documentarian and journalist, her ultimate goal is to paint a comprehensive picture of how organizations in Turkey can work together to protect marine life in the region.

Reef Support is working to create a map of critical coral reefs to inform their restoration. Similar to the "Allen Coral Atlas," they source high resolution satellite imagery, but only for specific sites. Using the images, they can create a baseline measurement of reef size to inform which reefs to focus conservation on and how. This grant supports the development of this map in Indonesia, Kenya, and one of the Dutch Caribbean islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). They will concurrently develop AI related to coral identification and hope to integrate the two to enable citizen scientists and divers to use and inform the maps.

SOA Ecuador is working with Latin American influencers on a social media challenge to raise awareness and pose challenges to viewers to take action on deep seabed mining. The posts and live discussions aim to reach over 500,000 people and generate at least 200 signatures for SOA's campaign for a moratorium on deep sea mining.

Project Transformar works with youth and low-income students in Parati City to provide online marine biology classes and take them on scuba-diving excursions to bring the ocean to life for them. They created a short documentary following 5 students and documenting their experience which is used to advertise the program and continue to get youth involved in future courses.

The Elasmobranch Citizen Science Network is creating an Indonesia-wide Citizen Science Network to support elasmobranch conservation through a mobile-reporting database. Elasmobranch Project Indonesia works with government and non-profit organizations and other stakeholders in the region to recruit and train youth from every region to identify and report shark sightings and landings.

The project team is using analytical chemistry methods and instrumentation in the lab to detect various compounds (Carbamazepine, Sulfamethoxazole, Diclofenac, and etc.) at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Florida, in collaboration with the University of Florida Environmental Toxicology Lab which specializes in pharmaceutical analysis. The goal is to produce a study of these compounds and other pollutants in Sweetwater and present findings to the public. Outreach efforts will also encourage environmental education and participation during the project.