Written by: Michelle Baptist
With many new initiatives and organizations rising in global coral conservation, one opportunity known as “Coral Catch” stands out. Director and Founder Rose Huizenga created Coral Catch in 2021 as the first completely local female coral restoration team in Indonesia. She designed the program for local Indonesian girls eager to make an impact and to help expand Asian-Pacific Islander women’s rights in marine conservation work. Rose recently delivered a heartfelt presentation on her journey as a founder of Coral Catch at the Reef Futures Conference in Mexico last December.
Figure 1: Team of Coral Catch members on a field boat. Photo credit: coralcatch.org.
Starting with Sharks
Originally the Director of Gili Shark Conservation, Rose’s mission began from her love of scuba diving as a PADI scuba instructor while in Indonesia. She started Gili Shark Conservation in 2015 after witnessing the stark reality of shark population extinction and once-vibrant corals dying off. Sharks are keystone predators and maintain the delicate balance of fish populations in healthy ocean ecosystems. When sharks no longer monitor the reef, the fish and coral populations suffer. The award-winning Gili Shark Conservation program addressed reef shark conservation and overfishing to promote ocean health. However, the global pandemic lockdowns in 2020 brought new operational and financial challenges to the international program. To obtain grant funding and keep her conservation mission going, Rose and her team had to come up with another solution.
Coral Catch
This led to the creation of “Coral Catch” to combine Rose’s passions of female empowerment and conservation. Despite being overlooked in society, women’s rights in environmental conservation are essential to protecting our rapidly changing climate. Rose received many pushbacks from her idea, as Indonesian women are discouraged from learning to swim let alone work outside their homes. Nevertheless, Rose offered a coral restoration scholarship and received many local applications, resulting in a major step forward for both coral conservation and gender equality. The 6-month pilot involved eight Indonesian women who had received the scholarship and were taught by a local female marine scientist to create a coral monitoring project. Admirably called “Superwomen” during the project, the eight women succeeded in completing the monitoring and graduated the program to pursue a career in marine conservation.
During her Reef Futures presentation in Mexico, Rose discussed the five fundamental pillars of Coral Catch to her audience:
- Field experience
- Knowledge
- Pay it Forward
- Support System
- Empowerment
To dive deeper into each pillar, field experience consists of the team earning a PADI open water diver certification and familiarizing them with working outdoors and underwater. Participants gain knowledge through understanding aspects of program funding and developing public speaking skills. The program also pays it forward by teaching local students and women to swim, snorkel, and eventually obtain their own PADI open water diver certification. This builds a Support System that develops the confidence of the Superwomen through working together as a community and taking them out to snorkel the reefs. It reinforces the belief that we can advocate and conserve what we are taught and shown. Empowerment promotes gender equality being fundamental to a sustainable future and raising the voices of women. Rose encouraged this pillar with her statement of “investing in women is investing in their children and future education beginning at home.”
Figure 2: Coral Catch team in the field shown above on boat and divers below practicing open water diving skills. Photo credit: Nicolas Hahn (coralcatch.org)
As Coral Catch continues to grow, so do its program goals. Rose aims to build a strong network of 100 female leaders protecting Indonesia’s coral reefs and wants to organize the first Coral Catch conference in 2025. To learn more about her ongoing efforts that inspired this exciting new movement for coral conservation, read more at: www.coralcatch.org!
Figure 3: Coral Catch website photo with reef background and their story on YouTube. Photo credit: coralcatch.org
References:
Rose Huizenga, Reef Futures Presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jWAFBTWPK0&t=7151s
Reefbites 