Blue Alliance: Enhancing government collaboration with MERMAID

Angelique Brathwaite, PhD
Co-founder, Blue Alliance

Founded in 2015, Blue Alliance envisions self-sustaining Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).  Recognizing the limitations of public funding, they developed an innovative conservation model, partnering with governments to create financially independent MPAs. A key component of this work is robust data collection and analysis, and in 2023, Blue Alliance began collaborating with MERMAID to streamline their monitoring and reporting processes, enhancing their ability to demonstrate impact and secure sustainable funding for their vital work.

“Corals have a special place in my heart,” explains Angelique Brathwaite. “They're some of the smallest animals and yet they create the largest biogenic structures on our planet. They're resilient and fragile at the same time; living within these really narrow environmental parameters and, to me, they're just gorgeous.”

Angie is a Barbadian Marine Ecologist and co-founder of Blue Alliance, a non-profit organization working alongside governments in the Philippines, Zanzibar, and Indonesia to improve the health of marine ecosystems and improve the lives of 110,000 local community members. This work involves managing MPAs, that encompass some of the 1.8 million hectares of coral reefs Blue Alliance works to protect, while also securing funding for reef-positive businesses.

Blue Alliance is part of a portfolio of programs under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR). UNEP is the leading global authority on the environment. UNEP’s mission is to inspire, inform, and enable nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. GFCR is enhancing the resilience of coastal reef ecosystems, communities, and economies by unlocking new public and private resources that accelerate sustainable businesses and financial solutions. In her current role as director of Science for Blue Alliance, Angie is responsible for coordinating conservation and science programs that support this process. 

Angie holds a PhD in Marine Biology from the Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) Research University and is a PADI Instructor. She is an expert in both coral reef science and integrated coastal management, with over 25 years of experience gained in reefs and coastal communities all over the world. Angie headed the Marine Research Section for Government in Barbados for over a decade, developing coral reef-related research projects in addition to reef system management protocols compatible with integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) frameworks.

Monitoring, measuring, and evaluating impact

“My work relies so much on data,” explains Angie. “As a manager, I want to know what we can do to improve the health of coral reef ecosystems and then determine if what we're doing is actually having any impact.” 

To find answers to these questions, Angie and her team measure coral cover (and other benthic indicators) with photo quadrats, and monitor fish biomass, abundance and diversity, along transect lines. Measuring fish biomass helps organizations understand the overall health of the reef.  “We also specifically monitor commercial fish,” she says, “because they’re most affected by fishing and changes in biomass can therefore indicate if our conservation measures are working, or not.” Increased fish biomass means more food and income for local fishing communities.

Blue Alliance has a strong emphasis on raising public awareness and educating fishing communities about the benefits of sustainable practices. “Learning is a two-way street, fishers and coastal communities have lots of local knowledge, but sometimes are unaware of the negative impacts of their actions. We want to reveal to these communities the bounty of what they have in their backyards,” she explains. “We can show them the data and say ‘look, at the moment in this area, you have 40% coral cover – with dynamite fishing, you reduce that to zero in a few seconds.’” 

That same data can also be a powerful tool when it comes to mobilizing funding. “For impact investors, we need to show them if their money is having the desired impact; when they need an update on indicators, such as fish biomass, it’s important for me to have the answers ready at the touch of a button. This knowledge helps give legitimacy to MPA enforcement, both from the perspective of communities we're working with and the investors we’re working for.” MERMAID’s streamlined reporting capabilities allow Blue Alliance to quickly and easily generate the data-driven reports that investors require, securing crucial funding for their conservation projects.

Powering innovation with MERMAID

Angie and Blue Alliance are using MERMAID to conduct data from ecological surveys on coral reef sites, then use the resulting data to monitor and evaluate the impact of their management. “One of the biggest benefits we have experienced so far with MERMAID is that it allows the entire team to access data at a glance,” says Angie. “Anyone, from communications to operations, can go on the dashboard and get a snapshot of a reef they’re interested in.”

One of the biggest benefits we have experienced so far with MERMAID is that it allows the entire team to access data at a glance.

Covering various locations and coordinating multiple projects, Angie sees a real-word benefit in data sharing. “I think data is so much more powerful when it's shared,” she explains. “If you're holding it close to your chest and not letting anyone else see it, it's a wasted opportunity. For events like bleaching, it’s really interesting to see how our reefs are doing in comparison to other reefs in the same region, for example.” 

Using the data-sharing options on the Collect app, MERMAID users can customize privacy parameters for their data and share it through restricted or open access on the dashboard or in MERMAID’s R-package. For Angie, who works with various different governments, scientists, and communities, this flexibility is another major plus point. “What is especially useful for me in MERMAID is the ability to share with different levels of privacy,” she explains. “So even if some governments don't want their raw data shared, but they're okay with a general summary, we can do it all on the same database. I think it's a wonderful feature and a step towards sharing data globally, which i’d personally love to see.”

Faster insights, faster impact

Angie and her team first started using MERMAID in 2023. Before then, they had experienced a number of pain points in collating and reporting data. “The first monitoring event we did in 2022, I'm not going to lie, it took us over a year to get all the data input and also to develop reports.” The biggest challenge was ensuring all data were standardized across four different countries, then presenting this information in a compelling way. Working piece by piece, buried under a mountain of Excel spreadsheets, Angie’s team spent the best part of a year pulling this report together.

It now takes me less than half the time to get reports done - it's very easy to use.

Effectively managing data from multiple sites across three countries presented a challenge. MERMAID's automatic checks and validations have been crucial in streamlining the process, resulting in clean, standardized data. She has been able to generate summaries, charts, tables, and maps of key reef health indicators from her old Excel files. “It now takes me less than half the time to get reports done – it's very easy to use.” This represents a >50% time saving on reporting via MERMAID.

Transforming MPAs with deep learning AI

Angie is optimistic about the benefits MERMAID will bring to her work, especially with new AI developments currently in the pipeline. “What we currently do in the field for benthics is take images, upload them, and then send them to consultants for analysis. So that comes with its own costs and time restrictions.” In terms of things she’d like to see from MERMAID in future, saving time and money on identification of photo quadrats using AI would be a giant leap forward.

She also sees a range of other positive impacts on the horizon. “Personally, I think the real benefits of MERMAID are going to become clear in the next few years, once you start to get all these pieces of the coral jigsaw fitting together over time.” With more scientists joining the platform and sharing their data, Angie looks forward to comparing her findings to other locations around the world, while also measuring changes to ecosystem health against standardized historic data.

“Over time, it will only get more connected and all the parts of the puzzle will come together to form a much clearer, much bigger picture of the problem – and potential solutions too,” she says. “I think that's going to be a really powerful tool to have.”

Keeping reef data open source and accessible is paramount, and that is one of the reasons why Blue Alliance continues to work with MERMAID. Go tackle your biggest challenges and let MERMAID provide you with the most secure, fast, and scalable platform so you can focus on the solutions that matter most to reef conservation. Get started for free today.