The Seagrass Ecosystem Service project, funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and implemented by CMS Dugong MOU, focuses on the conservation of seagrass ecosystems at critical sites in six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and India.
The project addresses key knowledge gaps in blue carbon, seagrass assessments, and dugong populations, emphasizing the vital relationship between dugongs and their seagrass habitats. Through community-led initiatives, such as citizen science, sustainable business models like homestays, spirulina production, and participatory videos, the project strengthens conservation efforts and fosters resilience against climate change through nature-based solutions.
This project demonstrates the way in which WISDAM enables non-experts to conduct standardised, quantitative aerial surveys with remote support rather than needing to fly experts in to help.
Under this SES Project, five NGOs conducted surveys within their local areas to quantify dugong populations and assess other megafauna populations using their seagrass habitats. The aims of these dugong surveys were not only to obtain information on biodiversity in seagrass habitats, but also to empower the local NGO communities to conduct these assessments by supporting them with tools (e.g. WISDAM) and build their capacity through training and technical guidance, allowing them to conduct their own local surveys during this project, and hopefully maintain this capacity to continue to conduct further surveys under future projects. Technical guidance was provided by two developers of WISDAM: Amanda Hodgson and Chris Cleguer.

These five NGOs include: YAPEKA (Indonesia), the Save Andaman Network (Thailand), MareCet (Malaysia), C3 (Philippines) and the Zoological Society of London (Philippines). The local personnel were trained to use WISDAM via a combination of online videos and a multi-day workshop hosted by Yapeka in Bogor, Indonesia (and which was combined with training for other aspects of the SES Project).

The surveys were conducted using small multirotor drones following methods described in the paper by . The design of the surveys and training on how to conduct the surveys (including logistical considerations such as aviation regulations and permits) was provided by the technical advisors. The local partners undertook local drone piloting training where required and conducted their own test flights. They then conducted the surveys, with most of them operating their drones from small boats. Drone piloting is not without its challenges, and the local partners had to be quite resilient to the technical issues that come hand in hand with being pioneers in a relatively new methodology. But all succeeded in completing their survey and some repeated the survey two or three times to investigate potential seasonal or annual variation.

WISDAM allowed our national partners to map and systematically review their images, label all marine megafauna sightings within the images, and produce maps of their sightings. They could also compare the detections from multiple reviewers, and between the reviewers and our Marine Animal Detection system (MAD AI model).
The national partners will use these data to produce population estimates of dugongs in their local survey areas, and to promote legislative protections of dugongs within their countries.

Training workshop for National Partners, Bogor, Indonesia