Bukidnon-born Camille Rivera entire life seems like she was made to start Oceanus Conservation, a non-profit organization dedicated to mangroves and blue carbon habitat protection. Raised by a horticulturist father and a social scientist mother, a young Rivera had a childhood filled with exploring football fields and other natural environments, lush with greens and devoid of artificial pollution. Exposed to nature at a young age, Rivera developed a keen interest in science, initially aspiring to study chemistry or even astrophysics when it was time to go off to university.
Coming from Bukidnon, however, means that one hails from the highland paradise in the heart of Mindanao, tucked away from vast bodies of water below. Traveling to the nearest ocean in Bukidnon meant an hour car ride, a luxury for Rivera during her childhood. No one in her family even knew how to swim—including her.
A young Rivera had a childhood filled with exploring football fields and other natural environments, lush with greens and devoid of artificial pollution
“I was so exposed to mountains [and] it was so hard for me to go to the ocean. I was curious. I started studying [the ocean] up until my adult life because I just keep going back to that childhood curiosity of asking myself, ‘Ano pa yung nasa dagat?’”
Fueled by an insatiable curiosity and love for nature, Rivera eventually majored in Marine Biology at Ateneo de Cagayan; earning an Outstanding Student honors during her undergraduate years and an Erasmus Mundus Masters for Marine Biodiversity—marking all the beginnings of a a promising career dedicated towards wetland protection. However, conservation was not a conscious goal she worked towards from the beginning. On a day out in the field, a serendipitous discovery gave her the epiphany to start Oceanus.
Reviving the kidneys of the coast
Out in the wetlands of Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental, Rivera worked as an Education and Community Projects Lead for the McKeough Marine Research Center. In this capacity, Rivera collaborated with a community leader to look for common tree species. In their search, they came across something else—something far rarer and more unrecognizable, with green buds coupled among simple, bud-shaped leaves. Upon closer examination, Rivera and her co-worker identified the species as an endangered mangrove scientifically called Camptostemon philippinense, or Gapasgapas in local terms.
“It's like seeing a pangolin after you've seen so many species,” says Rivera, describing the raw state of awe she felt during that moment. “You could really hear the sound of the birds. And it was so quiet. And it was so beautiful. It was that moment I felt that connection bigla. [I asked myself,] why don't people see this beauty?”
Mangroves, by definition, are plants adapted to loose, wet soils, or salt water and typically form tropical forests. The earthy smell and vividly green flora found in a mangrove forest, as well as the crisp sound of birdsong and insect-buzzing, make for an enchanting mood in one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems; one is bound to spot endangered animals such as dugongs, Bengal Tigers, False Water Rats, among others, when wading through its waters.
Beyond their ecological significance, mangroves play a crucial role in local communities, offering storm signals and protection, food, livelihood, and even leisure. Rivera uses scientific facts to drive home the importance of wetland protection, such as how mangrove areas serve as nursery grounds for around 80 percent of commercially valuable fish.
Furthermore, mangrove forests often function as natural landmarks for communities, providing traditional knowledge, like how the color of mangrove trees can signal the coming of a typhoon. During another assessment in Siargao, Rivera and her team were frightened by the sudden appearance of a giant snake; later, locals warned the party not to disturb the snake as it was the “bantay” of the mangrove.
Despite their vital functions, mangroves are at alarming risk of deforestation, urbanization, tourism, and various human interventions. Studies indicate a staggering loss of at least 35 percent of the world’s mangrove forests between 1980 and 2000. Mangrove cover in the Philippines has dwindled by half with only 250,000 hectares left.
Mangroves are influenced by the frequency of tidal currents, salinity, groundwater, and temperature--all of which are greatly altered by climate change. Typhoons and sea level rise pose devastating threats to mangroves, but human intervention in the form of development and fish pond conversion is also detrimental to many already endangered species.
“Usually, when people go to mangroves, especially when they do volunteer work, they go to mangroves already on the verge of being degraded. They don't see the full beauty of mangroves themselves,” Rivera remarks.
Following her encounter with the Gapasgapas, Rivera founded Oceanus, driven by the realization that there was no local non-profit organization dedicated to mangrove conservation. While beholding the beauty of wetlands gave Rivera a higher vision for Oceanus, she also saw the necessity of implementing an evidence-based approach to community development.
Many communities cut down mangrove forests into fish ponds to promote fish and shrimp aquaculture; however, they typically lack the resources for maintenance, deserting these ponds over time. This is when Oceanus comes in with their primary project: Blue carbon restoration, a conservation effort that involves rehabilitating acres of abandoned fishponds back into sprawling mangrove forests.
Blue carbon restoration also encompasses other coastal wetlands that store carbon such as seagrasses and tidal marshes. This conservation technique can be oftentimes tedious, since the results manifest gradually over several years.
The turnout, nonetheless, is nothing short of fulfilling, Rivera fondly recalls. For the second fishpond conversion project Oceanus has ever implemented, the team used the mound planting method in Aringay, La Union, a technique that involves lifting the soil to loosen it and setting it back down to increase the survival rate of saplings. Typically, mangrove planting sees a survival rate of only around 10 to 20 percent, but the Oceanus blue carbon projects have a survival rate of approximately 75 percent.
Rooted in Science, blossoming in communities
Successful mangrove rehabilitation in Oceanus is underpinned by three vital pillars. First, Rivera and her team believe in meticulous, science-based approaches to restoration. This may seem like a given considering the nature of marine conservation; still, Rivera laments how many organizations are quick to go about mangrove planting without conducting proper studies, oftentimes resulting in planting seeds in unsuitable environments where their survival is unlikely.
“It's really about nature. You plant many times in this area for three years, three consecutive years which is so common, and see it's not growing,” Rivera notes. “What is the nature telling you? It's telling you it's not supposed to be there.”
Monitoring and evaluation, then, are part and parcel of why the abandoned fishponds in Aringay were able to spring back to life, with mangroves growing like little miracles.
Besides mangrove planting, Oceanus conducts coral reef monitoring, which includes real-time temperature data collection, with the help of donated loggers from the U.S. that can monitor below up to 15 meters below the sea’s surface. These are crucial in addressing cases like coral bleaching, which is exacerbated by warming ocean temperatures, affecting the amount of light or nutrients that marine species receive. Steady temperatures are especially vital to coral reefs as they can only withstand up to 31 degrees Celsius. Out in Calatagan, Batangas, a bleaching incident was caused by water temperature rising up to 32 degrees Celsius—this was data Rivera was able to detect through a mock deployment. More loggers were installed after in Coron, Tubataha, and Ilijan, all home to critically endangered reefs and other marine species, for further monitoring.
“We were able to catch that it reached 32—like we caught that data,” notes Rivera. “ I mean, you cannot reduce climate change [by yourself]. It's hard unless you target fossil fuels directly. But you can find ways to reduce the local pressure from that data alone. That sensor, that technology can just help you make decisions faster. Like the moment you see it, okay, what can we do?”
"I just keep going back to that childhood curiosity of asking myself, ‘Ano pa yung nasa dagat?’”
On the other hand, gathering evidence alone is not enough to produce change. The second pillar is active community engagement—not only of local inhabitants but of local government units as well. Rivera credits the basis of her vision towards community development to her time in Negros as a community manager: the Negrenses she worked with once requested a boardwalk along their mangrove forest, which her organization at the time assisted in building. The locals have since protected that boardwalk and the surrounding area ever since without direct intervention from the research center.
“You have to make sure you have a community that's active, that's accepting, that's open-minded—that would help and see the goal that you see as well. But you have to give that trust,” Rivera says. “That's why science can never truly be without the social context as well because we deal with communities.”
At the end of the day, successful conservation projects require allyship from other organizations and governmental units. Institutional support, therefore, is the final pillar providing resources for Oceanus to sustain its conservation efforts.
In around three years, Rivera has strategically mapped out these pillars, concurrently innovating approaches to raise awareness about blue carbon restoration in the form of ocean storybooks, collaborating with other conservation organizations.
Rivera aims to further explore how else to apply cutting-edge technology as the organization expands—not just for the conservation of blue carbon habitats, but for human communities to thrive as well. After all, the communities know their locale best, Rivera explains. All Oceanus aims to do is merge existing local knowledge with technology, such as teaching them how to collect data with smartphones, like mangrove threats and tree types, among others.
When people go to mangroves, they go to mangroves already on the verge of being degraded. They don't see the full beauty of mangroves themselves.
“It's so ingrained in them to respect nature at such a fundamental level. It's interesting to explore that relationship or potential between conservation and local knowledge,” Rivera muses.
Ultimately, everything Oceanus does and aims to further pursue is for the protection of severely undervalued marine ecosystems that are home to equally undervalued wildlife. As they refine their conservation techniques, Rivera and her team seek to deepen the relationship between Oceanus and its existing sites in La Union, Misamis Oriental, and Surigao del Sur, eschewing extractive methods of development in favor of pursuing collaborative approaches.
“We're so vulnerable to threats, right? That's the reason why I created, co-founded, and developed this NGO,” Rivera continues. “People forget that we need homes. Without shelter, we're nothing. People need homes, and wildlife needs their ecosystems.”
