Mangrove conservation and monitoring in the Maldives

Active · since Q1 2026 · Faadhoo, Maldives

Mangroves are among the most productive and least visible ecosystems on the planet. In the Maldives they hold the coastline together, shelter fish nurseries, sequester carbon at rates that outpace most terrestrial forests, and live alongside communities whose history is bound up with them. They are also under pressure — from sea-level change, salinity shifts, land-use change, and the simple fact that they are easier to clear than to study.

This project is open research on the status, change, and stewardship of Maldivian mangroves, centered on the mangrove forest of Faadhoo island — done in partnership with the people who steward it.

Partner and site

We work in partnership with Big Fish Maldives, who maintains Faadhoo — a private island with a living mangrove forest — and has made it available as a working site for open research. Faadhoo gives the project a place to ground-truth what satellites and drones see, observe change over time at a single intact ecosystem, and develop methods that travel beyond one island.

What we are working on

• A baseline map of mangrove extent and species composition across the inhabited and uninhabited islands where mangroves are present, assembled from satellite imagery, drone surveys, and field observation.
• Change detection over time — historical loss and recovery, current pressure, and an honest accounting of where each data source is enough and where it is not.
• Custom AI systems built for the specifics of Maldivian mangroves — segmenting canopy from satellite tiles, identifying species and stress from low-altitude drone imagery, and reconciling the two scales of observation.
• Carbon and biodiversity value estimated openly, with assumptions and uncertainties visible — so the numbers can be challenged.
• Stewardship tools designed with local communities and conservation practitioners, not handed down to them.

Methods in use now

• Satellite imagery for extent, change, and broad-scale monitoring.
• Drone surveys for sub-meter resolution where the satellite signal is too coarse — individual trees, canopy condition, edge dynamics, species composition.
• Custom AI models trained on this combined imagery — segmentation, classification, and change detection tuned to the species and conditions of the Maldives, rather than off-the-shelf models tuned somewhere else.
• Field observation to verify what the models see and surface what they miss.

How we work

We do not arrive with finished answers. Our role is to bring open methods and shared infrastructure to questions Maldivian researchers, community members, and institutions are already asking — and to publish what we find openly so the work can be extended.

Data observed in the Maldives stays with the people who observed it. We collaborate without asking communities to surrender data rights to participate.

Themes this project anchors

• Mapping nature
• Monitoring ecosystems in real time
• Conservation, water, and food security

Updates

We will publish findings, methods, and open datasets as the work develops. The first publications are expected later in 2026.