Restoring Thailand's Coastlines: The Promise and Pitfalls of Mangrove Projects

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One of the big pushes about restoration is restoring coastlines

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with carbon sequestering type

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habitats, but also habitats that will protect the shoreline, will

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increase biodiversity, and will have economic

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as well as environmental impacts for a long time.

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But all of those different reasons to restore

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a coastline, they don't always align. And sometimes

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it gets in the way of actual proper restoration of

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a coastline. So we're gonna talk about Thailand, and we're gonna talk

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about the budding mangrove restoration, and some of the concerns that surround

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it with blue carbon, some private and public

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partnerships, and where and how restoration is

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actually done. We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How to

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Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host Andrew Lewin and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,

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how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a

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better ocean by taking action. This is where you find all things

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about the ocean and you can find out more information if you go

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to the website speakupforblue.com or

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you can also and you can also sign up for new

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news that's happening in and around the ocean and

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some new jobs that are available too if you're looking for a career. So lots of

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things to look for, speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter

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and then if you just want the regular website with a number of different podcasts on

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it, go to speakupforblue.com. Let's talk about

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Thailand and I want you to just be a little patient, sit back and

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just listen to what I'm going to say for this episode

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because there's a lot to get through and there's a lot of things

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that we have to consider. And I'm really glad this article was written by Carolyn Cowan

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from Among the Bay. And I'm going to link to the article

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in the show notes as well as the description if you're watching this on YouTube. there's

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a lot to know about restoration there's a

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lot that goes into restoration and there's a lot of things that could be good and

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bad when it comes to restoration some of those are the outside

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pressures that come with you know trying to

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do better for the planet we know we are in it right

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now for the the planet, right? We are

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seeing a lot of problems. We have observed climate change on

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countless different fronts, from droughts to wildfires, to

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sea level rise, to increased storm surges, more flooding, more

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rainfall, hotter ocean surfaces,

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like record-breaking. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime

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soon. Some of the things that we can do are restore habitats

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to decrease the effects of climate change and reduce climate change

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and greenhouse gases by sequestering more carbon. But

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what we can also do is protect the coastlines more, just as

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they originally did when these coastlines were intact. They

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provided not only security from tsunamis or storm

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surges, but they provided biodiversity so that

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people can fish and people can live off and enjoy the

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fruits of the labor of having healthy mangroves,

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and also just a stable ecosystem, which again, provides

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security, provides natural resources ability, and

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just makes everything better. Let's be honest, it just

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makes everything better. So today we're gonna be talking about Thailand's

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mangrove restoration projects and their plans, and how

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it can benefit them, but how some of the things that happen through

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restoration, through different pressures and

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different, I guess, opportunities and projects, have not

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been as fruitful as hoped. And so we're gonna talk about that.

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But before we get into that, I want you to understand that

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restoration, one, is expensive. Protection is

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better. It's cheaper, it's longer lasting, and

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it's better. But no matter what you choose, protection, restoration,

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you always have to start somewhere. And even though we're

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gonna be talking about some problems that are going on with these

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plans and with these projects over time, the strategy is the same,

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is to continue to do things, continue to

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restore, continue to protect. Be able

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to find out the problems, adapt to those problems, and be able to

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manage those problems better in the future by

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just switching up the strategy. So none

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of these projects should be vilified. None of

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these projects should be saying, hey, you know what, we can't do this

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restoration because there's always these little problems here and there. No,

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these problems happen when you start to do action. And

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that's what we're talking about today is we're talking about action.

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And that's sort of what I want to focus on is the action.

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And so I want you to remember when I talk about a lot of these

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things, and I identify some of the shortcomings of

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these plans that, you know what, Thailand's doing a great job. The people

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of Thailand are doing a great job at forwarding this

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restoration, okay? So there's a number of things that we need to consider when

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we're restoring. Some things are a little bit higher priority than others,

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but overall, there's still things that you can change and there's still things that you can

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manage. So this is a great article. I highly recommend that you

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take some time and read it. It's something that I

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always love from Mongabay. The authors put in so much detail

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and it's so great. And this article starts off with

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speaking to someone who is uh... disorderly

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the through the keeper of this education center

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unnatural services called the mangrove nature school in

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bangku a village roughly two hours drive south

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of bangkok uh... and so in this uh... summit song

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of groom uh... province i apologize if i'm not pronouncing this

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properly i'm not very familiar with the pronunciation for a lot of

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these places here in in thailand uh... but

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So there's a huge area of,

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well not huge I guess, but larger area of mangroves that are on

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this preserve. It's been preserved for over three decades. It's a

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6.5 hectare or 15.8 acres of patch of

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mangrove forest that is next to this person's village. Being

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able to have that, you have mudskippers, iridescent fiddler

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crabs that flip between the tangled

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roots of a pair of seven and a half meter or 25 foot

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mangrove trees as the tide laps relentlessly beneath the raised

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walkway. So you get a little bit of a description of what happens in there. When

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they start to look at this coastline, they start to see

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a reminder that there is some eroding

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of the coastline that's rapidly eroding. And Thailand's

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Department of Marine and Coastal Resource Management estimates that parts of

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the Gulf of Thailand lose up to 5 meters or 16 feet

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of land to the sea level rise per year. We're going to talk about

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sea level rise as well as coastal development in a little bit. Now

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I want to go a bit into the history of

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Thailand's mangrove areas and

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the sort of degradation that we've seen over

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that time because I think it's important to have sort

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of a knowledge of where they were, where they've been, and how

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it's going right now. So in 1961 there was estimate coverage

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that was at 350,000 hectares

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in 1961 and it dropped to 160,000 hectares by

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1996. So that's a huge, huge drop. So

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in 1996, they realized, hey, hold on a second, we need to build

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up our mangroves because they provide a lot of

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services. So they provide, first of all, security. So

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when a tsunami comes through, the areas that have intact

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mangrove habitats dispel the energy, right?

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They basically dissipate that energy of waves that comes over the

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top and through the mangroves so that by the time it gets to some

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of the villages and towns that are beyond the mangrove areas,

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like that 50 meter swath that they like to keep in Thailand, then

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the energy is a lot less, the destruction is a lot less,

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lives are saved. and it's a lot better. So having an

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intact and healthy mangrove forest is good from

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a, or is great from a security standpoint. It's also great from a

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biodiversity standpoint. There's lots of fishing that can go

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on. It can feed local fishing villages for

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a lifetime and more in generations if you have that healthy area,

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right? Plus you have the diversity, you get a lot of birds. Having

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biodiverse areas is meaning you have a stable coastline.

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Meaning that, you know, when you have all these different animals that

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take part in sort of taking care of

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these habitats, you know, from making sure that invasive

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species get eaten and taken away, or

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that certainly everything is all balanced and stable, then you

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start to have some good things happening there. So

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that's all good from there. So having a biodiverse area, healthy

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mangroves that can help with security is

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a huge, huge impact. Then there's also the carbon

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credits that you can get, that they're a carbon sink. So they sequester

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carbon by continuing to build and regrow

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and regenerate through mangroves, mangrove trees.

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They are a tree, and they tend to sequester four times the

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amount of, up to four times, maybe even more, of regular

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trees that we normally talk about when we talk about blue carbon projects. So

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they are a blue carbon community, a habitat, and something that

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we need to focus on. We did talk, and I'll put the link in the show notes,

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recently with World Economic Forum about

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one of their projects to restore mangroves in a lot of different places in

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the tropics. And, you know, so that it's obviously

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a worldwide and global initiative to do this, but in Thailand,

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it's big. Now, 160,000 acres down in or down to 160,000 acres in 1996. The

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response to that and the increase in

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planting these types of mangroves increased by

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50%. By the time, I think it was 2000 and,

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so here it is right here, or

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I guess right now, 2024, now has 248,400 mangroves. hectares

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so it's a 50% increase of mangrove cover according

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to UNESCO figures which is great that's a 50% of

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coverage from 1996 that's big and

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is a 400 sorry 46,400 of

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those acres are managed for conservation as natural national

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parks or wildlife sanctuaries so that's a big bonus

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so we are seeing an increase in the coverage now

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here's the thing we are seeing a mass

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plantings happening and this is a lot of private and public sort

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of partnerships that are happening where you will get companies who

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are saying hey you know what we've planted a certain amount of trees a

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certain amount of mangrove trees along this coastline and we've done this

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and we've done that and the And it's great and

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you get the companies that are being part of restoring the coastline, protecting

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Thailand, protecting people along those coastlines and

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just the nature of it all, the biodiversity, that

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makes businesses feel good. It also shows that they're doing some good things and

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it's good for their PR. And we've seen in the

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history of Thailand, in the past, we've seen a lot of degradation and

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removal for building like shrimp farms and development stuff.

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And so now to see these coastlines being naturalized is

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a good thing, right? We're starting to see that. And companies that

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are partnering with the government to be able to

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put these programs and have permission to plant in certain areas is

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a benefit, right? To see that. So you'll see a sloth of in

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pictures that this company is putting together of these little mango shoots

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that are about yay big, you know, maybe a foot, foot and a half high, and

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they're being planted in rows and they're like, you know, planted together and

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so forth. And then all of a sudden, They

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forget about it. They stop posting about it. They've planted their stuff, they've

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done their thing, and they stop posting about it. Here's the

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one of the concerns that's coming through, is where these trees

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are being planted, where these mangrove seedlings are being planted. They're not being

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planted in the right areas. They're being planted in areas that gets washed over

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by the tide, and at the time for those seedlings, they get drowned.

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They can actually drown, and they can get destroyed. And so these shoots

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that you see will eventually die because they will they

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will die. They will drown. They won't get enough. They won't get enough air.

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They won't get enough, uh, non coverage of ocean and

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they will dissipate and they will get destroyed. So all that money

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that was put into, you know, grow the seedlings and

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to create the seedlings and, uh, bring them over to certain

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areas, the time it takes and the team building it does for these

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companies and the feel good, all that work, all that effort, all

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that money washed away with the ocean, literally washed

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away. So these efforts are

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not as good as that first preserve that we talked about at

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the beginning of this show, when I went through it, where

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it's like 6.4 hectares of mangrove forest that

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is planted carefully, is planted together so

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that the roots intertwine, so that they're

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stronger together, that are planted in specific areas

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where the ocean's not gonna wash over them as

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they're growing and not gonna kill them. When

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we talk about restoration, this is what I talked about at the beginning, is that there

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are certain places where you will restore, there are certain places where

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you won't restore, and it does not matter if there were mangroves that were

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there before. The fact that there's been a lack of mangroves for

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10, 20, 30, 40 years could make that historic

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site not appropriate for planting

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mangroves anymore or for a mangrove habitat because it changes over time.

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You know, if you don't have mangroves, you don't have the land because that

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gets eroded away from the water, from the ocean, and from the tides coming

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in and out. So you don't have that space. That's

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gone. You know, the fact that sea level is rising in

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a lot of these island areas and the fact that there is less

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of a stability because of lack of mangroves can change an area.

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So something that was historically a mangrove habitat 30 years

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ago 40 years ago even 10 years ago may not be appropriate to

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be a mangrove habitat now and may need to be built up

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which can take a lot more money and a lot more time to do but

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just being just saying hey we're just going to plant these areas

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because this company was going to pay for a lot of that and they want to

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be a part of this that may not be the best area. So there

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needs to be better coordination of planning and the sites that need

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to do this. Now I'm a former GIS guy. I'm still a GIS guy,

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but I used to work in GIS and a lot of times when we talked about

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restoration, we would look at suitable areas.

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We'd have a map of the area, whether it be a coastline, whether it be on land. I

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did a lot of different things. We would look, okay, here

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are the attributes of an area that we're considering to

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restore or a number of areas that we're considering to restore. We would look

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at that attribute and we would look at, we'd basically do like a prediction model

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saying which areas would be the best, would have the best

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success rate of holding on to a mangrove for

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a longer period of time. So, it's not just that you plant it and

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a year later, all those seedlings are gone. It's you plant

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it and a year later, they're still there. Another year later, they're still there. Five

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years down the road, it's growing into a bigger mangrove area.

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Ten years down the road, all right, now we have an established area. We're starting to see more

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biodiversity of ocean animals that are there and mangrove animals, land

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and, you know, we're starting to see like birds, coastal birds and seabirds come

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out. We're starting to see like nursing areas starting to develop, nursery

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areas. These are really important. The longevity of

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that growth and seeing that habitat

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evolve and build on the security

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of that area and the stability of that area is

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great to see, but you have to give it time. It's going to take time. You can't just

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plant for the sake of planting and not being able to come

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back a year later and seeing the fruits of your labor, the fruits of

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the funding that's been put into it, and the actual labor that's been put

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into it. where you plant is a

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00:16:52,380 --> 00:16:55,582
big thing. And so there needs to be a little bit better coordination and

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identification of candidate sites that are good to

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restore. So you're not just throwing away money for the sake of

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greenwashing, essentially, right? Because these companies, although they may not

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00:17:06,470 --> 00:17:09,972
want to greenwash, they want to see the success, they don't necessarily follow

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00:17:09,992 --> 00:17:13,234
the success. So having programs where the companies can be in

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it for the long run, like in it to win it really, to see

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00:17:16,536 --> 00:17:19,777
that win and be able to report on that or be able to

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show that through social media or through, you know, talking to their clients or

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whatever business they're in. Being able to show success could

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really further these projects more. And when you have mangroves that

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00:17:31,583 --> 00:17:35,324
are established, when you have mangroves that have been around for a while and that provide

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that security, provide that biodiversity benefit, then you start to

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see the social impacts and the environmental impacts quite

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00:17:42,408 --> 00:17:45,681
quickly. And that is an important part of

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this area. The second problem that we've seen, and

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I told you to stay with me here, the second problem that we've seen is the

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fact that it's the same mangrove, the red mangroves, that

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are being chosen to basically be

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planted. So now you have a monoculture of habitat

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of mangroves. And some of these areas did not

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have red mangroves in the first place. right? Some

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of these areas had different types of mangroves. But

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the thing is, is that mangroves from a restoration practice is

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00:18:16,576 --> 00:18:20,178
easier to grow, is faster to grow and faster to establish no matter where

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00:18:20,238 --> 00:18:23,380
it is within, say in this case, in Thailand. So the

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00:18:23,420 --> 00:18:26,782
red mangrove can actually grow faster, establish itself faster. So

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there's a good and bad thing in this. The good thing is that a lot of the times,

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from the government perspective, they want to provide security in case a tsunami comes

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in. We don't know when tsunamis are going to come in. The 2004 Christmas

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00:18:36,951 --> 00:18:40,053
tsunami was one of those situations where it

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00:18:40,093 --> 00:18:43,416
impacted a huge swath of people in Southeast Asia,

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00:18:44,077 --> 00:18:47,640
and it killed a lot of people. And if you didn't have mangroves

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00:18:47,780 --> 00:18:51,039
in your area restored, You were in trouble. But

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if you did, you weren't in as much of trouble and

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00:18:54,423 --> 00:18:58,047
the damage wasn't as bad. And often places

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saving, you know, villages and towns and people. But

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if you, so here's the tugging, the

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pulling and tugging of this or push and pull of this. is

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the fact that when you are trying

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00:19:13,273 --> 00:19:16,514
to restore for protection, you want to do it as fast as possible. The

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00:19:16,554 --> 00:19:20,256
faster situation here is to have a monoculture of red mangroves to

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put up. This may not be the mangrove of the day. It may

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00:19:23,477 --> 00:19:26,858
not be the mangrove that would do better in the soil, in

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00:19:26,878 --> 00:19:30,379
the area that is being planted. But it does grow.

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00:19:30,479 --> 00:19:34,540
And it's sort of more resilient than other species. So

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you're having this monoculture being built right off the bat and being planted and

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00:19:38,082 --> 00:19:41,402
being established. But the good news is that you can start

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00:19:41,442 --> 00:19:44,683
planting other species as that sort

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00:19:44,723 --> 00:19:48,604
of forest, mangrove forest grows and is established, right?

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So the first thing is to get it up for security. The second thing is

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to prioritize for diversity of mangroves because

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you never know, you know, we've seen it here in Canada a lot of times and

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00:19:58,687 --> 00:20:02,207
in the States, once you have like an invasive species come through and there's one

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00:20:02,267 --> 00:20:05,533
species of tree that gets affected, it

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00:20:05,553 --> 00:20:08,975
will destroy all those species. So you're not going to have forests

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that are a monoculture of

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00:20:12,236 --> 00:20:15,497
a certain species, because if that species is affected, that entire forest is gone. So

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00:20:15,517 --> 00:20:18,839
it's better to have diverse forests with different tree

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00:20:18,879 --> 00:20:22,140
species, just like it would be for mangrove species. I

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00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:26,543
don't know much about mangroves and invasive species, and I don't know if that's as

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00:20:27,203 --> 00:20:31,425
prevalent as it is in forests here in Canada, but

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it can be pretty devastating. So if there is something like that, that's

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something you have to be careful of. Biodiversity in any

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kind of situation is much better, whether

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it comes from nature, animals, or even people. So we

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00:20:45,533 --> 00:20:48,724
should consider that more. Regardless, that is

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00:20:48,864 --> 00:20:52,566
one of the downfalls of trying to build and create and

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00:20:52,606 --> 00:20:55,867
establish a mangrove forest that is diverse, that

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00:20:55,927 --> 00:20:59,068
is long lasting, and that can help. But when you're trying to

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00:21:00,048 --> 00:21:03,529
protect for security, you want that 50 meter swath

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00:21:04,109 --> 00:21:07,390
of mangrove forest from the coastline that will

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help protect against any kind of tsunamis. So

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that's another one of those problems. Now the

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third and final sort of concern that we have is

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the fact that we're starting to see a lot of companies and a lot of governments start

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to jump on this blue carbon train. And

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00:21:26,007 --> 00:21:29,409
the situation of blue carbon is really interesting. From

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00:21:29,469 --> 00:21:32,930
a perspective of reestablishing blue carbon

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00:21:32,970 --> 00:21:36,431
habitats, so you have mangroves, seagrasses, salt

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00:21:36,491 --> 00:21:40,561
marshes, and so forth, these are areas

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that could sequester multiple

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times more carbon than regular

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00:21:48,486 --> 00:21:51,628
plants and trees, right? So like land plants and

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trees. So it's important to have these blue carbon habitats along

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the coastline. Now the problem is that they're along the coastline. And a

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lot of times the coastline has been altered in

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many places around the world so that it is good

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for coastal housing and residences or

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hotels and tourism or things like that. But you still

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need those habitats in there, like I said, for security. They have multiple benefits.

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But the blue carbon benefit is that it can sequester more

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00:22:19,271 --> 00:22:22,652
carbon, help us with reducing the amount of carbon

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00:22:22,672 --> 00:22:26,254
dioxide that is in the atmosphere. So having

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more of those blue carbon habitats planted is better. But

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00:22:30,436 --> 00:22:33,498
there's a bit of a greenwashing train, as there always is with a

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00:22:33,538 --> 00:22:36,921
lot of private companies who are putting money into projects that

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may or may not be real in some cases, or they could be

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putting into projects where the location,

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00:22:43,905 --> 00:22:47,127
just as I mentioned before, may not have been chosen right, but they can say, hey,

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we're doing stuff for carbon sequestration and we're establishing

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more blue carbon habitats, but they don't stay for a long time. Right?

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And so there's a push to do this type of work, but again,

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location matters and trying to figure out which location is

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00:23:02,701 --> 00:23:06,225
the best is a big thing. So having more

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00:23:06,265 --> 00:23:09,889
blue carbon habitats will be better, but you have to be careful of

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00:23:09,909 --> 00:23:13,714
the game of blue carbon. There's also carbon sequestration,

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00:23:14,114 --> 00:23:17,318
which is like, do we sink plants? And do we

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00:23:17,438 --> 00:23:21,063
sink these seaweed type materials and

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00:23:21,103 --> 00:23:24,787
aquatic plants and coastal plants that could absorb

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00:23:24,807 --> 00:23:28,031
way more carbon than land plants and trees? And we

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00:23:28,111 --> 00:23:31,847
sink them into the ocean to bury that carbon. That

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has not been perfected by any means. And there are very

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00:23:35,288 --> 00:23:38,989
few projects that are going on that I know of that are successful in

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00:23:39,209 --> 00:23:42,490
establishing that. And it's still in its early stages of

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00:23:42,530 --> 00:23:46,270
doing that. We don't know the effect of sinking seaweed

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00:23:46,370 --> 00:23:49,491
on mass levels in specific areas, the effect that

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00:23:49,511 --> 00:23:52,592
that will have on the deep sea. Just like we don't know what the

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00:23:52,612 --> 00:23:55,753
effect is on deep sea mining, on the deep sea, we don't know

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00:23:55,773 --> 00:23:58,933
the effect of sinking all the seaweed and what that's going to do in

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00:23:58,953 --> 00:24:02,034
the future for our deep sea. So a

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00:24:02,074 --> 00:24:05,196
lot of the carbon sequestration, blue carbon, you have to

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00:24:05,236 --> 00:24:09,078
be careful, although this is a very big key word within

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00:24:09,098 --> 00:24:12,440
the conservation community and the climate change community, we do

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00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,722
have to be careful and make sure that we are doing it properly. And not just

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00:24:15,742 --> 00:24:19,384
for the sake of putting it up on your letterhead, a blue carbon company

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00:24:19,444 --> 00:24:22,947
or a company that supports blue carbon habitats, or even, you

399
00:24:22,987 --> 00:24:26,569
know, the UN or, you know, World Economic

400
00:24:26,609 --> 00:24:30,271
Forum or big organizations like that, international organizations

401
00:24:30,291 --> 00:24:34,515
and even even small to medium-sized to large NGOs

402
00:24:34,555 --> 00:24:37,718
that are getting into this type of practice, they have

403
00:24:37,738 --> 00:24:42,463
to be careful that these programs are real and these programs are establishing long-term

404
00:24:43,344 --> 00:24:46,848
blue carbon habitats, right? Because they're not just blue carbon habitats, they

405
00:24:46,928 --> 00:24:50,071
provide biodiversity, they provide security, these are

406
00:24:50,352 --> 00:24:53,514
some big to-do habitats. So those are sort

407
00:24:53,534 --> 00:24:57,375
of the three problems that people have, especially

408
00:24:57,415 --> 00:25:00,856
in Thailand, when it comes to putting

409
00:25:00,876 --> 00:25:04,277
this forward. The other thing, there's one more, sorry I forgot to mention,

410
00:25:05,058 --> 00:25:08,259
has to do with when you have private and public partnerships, you have

411
00:25:08,479 --> 00:25:11,940
private companies who are buying up swaths of

412
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,242
land. They have ownership in some cases over that

413
00:25:15,302 --> 00:25:19,005
land. And so the question comes is, if they pay for

414
00:25:19,206 --> 00:25:22,648
planting mangroves in specific areas, does that area become

415
00:25:22,789 --> 00:25:25,931
theirs to own? Or does it go back to the people of

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00:25:25,951 --> 00:25:29,134
Thailand? Does it go back to the local villages of the people who live there? Do they

417
00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:32,337
lose their rights on those lands? Obviously, that's not what is

418
00:25:32,697 --> 00:25:36,260
wanted. That's not the outcome that's wanted. So people want to retain the ownership

419
00:25:36,801 --> 00:25:40,084
rights. of their land and they don't want to have

420
00:25:40,124 --> 00:25:43,467
it go to a company where they can just do whatever they want with

421
00:25:43,547 --> 00:25:46,871
it and we know how companies are sometimes and many times and

422
00:25:47,051 --> 00:25:50,354
you know that's something that can be very concerning. So that's sort of

423
00:25:50,514 --> 00:25:53,898
the final thing that happens. Now overall, planting is

424
00:25:53,938 --> 00:25:57,880
great. Making sure that we have restoration location

425
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:02,543
sites chosen for specific reasons of long-term restoration

426
00:26:02,763 --> 00:26:06,125
and establishment of mangrove areas will be key

427
00:26:06,465 --> 00:26:09,787
to ensuring that these mangroves stick around for a long period

428
00:26:09,807 --> 00:26:13,169
of time. You can have social economic benefits as well

429
00:26:13,189 --> 00:26:16,371
as environmental benefits. we can reduce climate change, we can

430
00:26:16,431 --> 00:26:20,453
have more blue carbon habitats along our coastline, naturalize

431
00:26:20,493 --> 00:26:24,015
our coastlines more, especially in Thailand, and

432
00:26:24,095 --> 00:26:27,176
just have a better planet after that. A lot of

433
00:26:27,216 --> 00:26:30,398
work still needs to be done, but there are great people that are doing the

434
00:26:30,458 --> 00:26:33,659
work in Thailand and across the world, and I think

435
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,545
it's really great. Now, I know in my audience here, There

436
00:26:37,585 --> 00:26:41,088
are people who are in the business of restoration, whether it be corals,

437
00:26:41,208 --> 00:26:44,510
whether it be mangroves, whether it be seagrasses. I would love to hear your

438
00:26:44,550 --> 00:26:47,933
stories. I would love to interview you on this podcast for your story.

439
00:26:47,953 --> 00:26:51,335
So if you have a project that you've been working on,

440
00:26:51,435 --> 00:26:54,698
or you are someone who's been in this field for

441
00:26:54,758 --> 00:26:58,140
quite some time, I would love to hear from you. Reach out to me on

442
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,743
Instagram, at HowToProtectTheOcean. I would love to hear your story.

443
00:27:01,763 --> 00:27:04,985
So that's at HowToProtectTheOcean. And everybody else,

444
00:27:05,025 --> 00:27:08,607
I'd love to hear what you think of this story, what you think of restoration in general,

445
00:27:08,967 --> 00:27:12,148
and some of the key concerns that we went through here today. I'd love

446
00:27:12,168 --> 00:27:15,829
to hear your overall thoughts. You can leave comments on Spotify, on

447
00:27:15,889 --> 00:27:19,070
YouTube, in the comments section, or you can give me a

448
00:27:19,350 --> 00:27:23,412
shout out or DM me on Instagram, at howtoprotecttheocean.

449
00:27:23,912 --> 00:27:27,176
I want to thank you so much for having patience to listen. I know this has been quite

450
00:27:28,017 --> 00:27:31,200
an intuitive and long episode. We're almost at a half hour right

451
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,544
now, but it's something that I want to go over for a long time.

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00:27:34,624 --> 00:27:37,787
So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of

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00:27:37,807 --> 00:27:41,031
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll