Seychelles Seagrass Citizen Science Monitoring Protocol for Schools and Community

Seychelles’ seagrass meadows are vital to fisheries, tourism, shoreline stability, water quality, and blue carbon storage, yet they face increasing pressures from coastal development, anchoring, trampling, nutrient inputs, intensifying tourism, and climate-related stressors. In Côte d’Or (Anse Volbert), Praslin, shallow seagrass beds are highly accessible and closely connected to daily coastal use, making them ideal sites for place-based learning and community observation. To address both conservation and education needs, the RECOS project developed a seagrass citizen science monitoring protocol for schools and communities, aligned with the national seagrass monitoring framework coordinated by SeyCCAT. The protocol provides simple, low-impact, and inclusive methods for documenting seagrass presence, cover, species composition, and visible disturbances, while building environmental literacy and stewardship. By linking monitoring with education and local coastal management, the protocol supports long-term protection of seagrass ecosystems and strengthens community capacity to detect change and contribute to conservation in a changing climate.