Coral Watch: Community Reef Monitoring Network

Local fishermen and coastal community members have been watching the reef change for decades. They know which sites are bleaching, which currents have shifted, which fish have disappeared. This proposal trains them to document what they already know. The $280 covers device costs, basic training, and a 3-month pilot across 5 reef sites. No external team. No consultants. The community runs it, the community owns the data, and the community decides what happens to it. Observations will be logged via Telegram bot in the local language, stored on a local server, and shared with researchers only on community terms. The long-term vision is a community-run reef health index that fishermen can use to decide where and when to fish, without waiting for a university report.

━━━ Budget Request ━━━ • Device and Training — $450 ━━━ Total: $450 ━━━