Climate Action: What the Youth Can Learn from the Sea

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES) hosted a free public webinar to join, discussing the main topic of Championing Youth for Climate Adaptation: Building A Resilient Future for Malaysia.

Iskandar Malaysia Social Hero Awards (IMSHA) winner Dr Serina Rahman, Co-Founder and Principal Advisor of Kelab Alami and lecturer in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, the National University of Singapore, was one of the panellists.

During this webinar Dr Serina discussed the topic of ‘Making a Difference for Climate Change Adaptation’ and presented examples from Kelab Alami with her thoughts on the future of seafood.

The Youth in Kelab Alami

Dr Serina shared about Kelab Alami’s efforts on fighting climate change impacts from 2008 to 2020, going beyond their village and Malaysian artisanal fishermen while concluding it all with what the public could do to help reduce the impact of climate change.

She pans on the seagrass and coastal mangroves beside the endangered sea species that could be found at the west south of the Tebrau Straits, where Kelab Alami carried out their activities to empower the community with environmental education and awareness from within through the establishment of citizen science, which then helps manage the community-led conservation area.

The contribution of young people was also apparent with strings of examples given by her under ‘The Youth were The Voice (2008-2020)’, where she shared that given education and trained by actual experts and scientists, young ‘kampung’ kids get more in-depth knowledge of their surrounding aided with structures and evidently able to do real research and could answer questions scientifically.

Local Communities the Best Experts of the Local Habitat

Dr Serina shared that local communities are the best experts of the local habitats and there are so much data and knowledge the world could tap on and have their own expertise going through the habitat that most people trained for but comes natural to them as they live there.

She also taught about the term “knowledge colonialism” which happens when experts came to the habitat every two months to extract information from the locals without acknowledging their knowledge on the subject they are researching or studying, advising audience to respect the local community on that.

“Everything that I know about the western Tebrau Straits in terms of the species, their behaviour, and changes to the climate – these are from the fishermen. I have a Ph.D., but it means nothing when it comes to the knowledge that they have given me in my seventeen-year stay with them at the fishing village,” she further added to illustrate the power of local knowledge compared to studying it academically.

In the framing of how youth could do for their community, Dr Serina then showed local ‘kampung’ youth guide the other youth, comprising of international school students and university students from MIT and Yale University as examples, going around the local habitat that they are much more knowledgeable of.

“If you are an undergraduate, you can also work with local youths, or you yourself, if you know of a habitat of your own kampungs, can share your stories with others,” she encouraged, before talking about Marine & Environmental Science Internship Projects & Collaborations called Kelab Alamai Citizen Science Centre or Kelab Alami Centre at Shattuck St Mary’s-Forest City International School, where they train more youth beyond the village to be citizen scientists as well.

Citizen Science (CitSci) Training for Community Research includes training youth from the region in citizen science skills & environmental education facilitation, facilitating in situ environmental education sessions (CitSci as an education tool, mangrove rescue on replanting and citizen science monitoring that draws the community into CitSci), then facilitating field trips, tours & curated edutourism as community ownership and care.

This youth CitSci’s programme on monitoring mangrove and sea grass is of such quality that some academics have hijacked it and said they are the ones who did it, further proving how good these youths are.

“The key to this, really, is passion. If you are really interested in doing something for the planet, and then you act to back that up, so many things can be done,” she said, further proving that youth could do more once they set their mind to it.

“As you can see, from very young, children can be involved in these kinds of programmes.”

“What is important to know is that Kelab Alami did not just do mangrove planting; as a CSR check listing, we also do mangrove rescue, and that provides the local community with a source of livelihood.”

“So even as you are planning a programme, think about more than just the environment; think about how the community that depends on that habitat can benefit from it financially. Which then becomes a tool to encourage them to join the programme because they see the economic benefit of it,” she said, giving the perspective from the eyes of the local community that could work with the environmental programme that organisations might put out.

She also added that these youths that are involved have been speaking to media like newspapers, television and documentaries – another added skill honed from the programme.

“These are some of the recent examples on how local youth can be the voice for the community and habitats, making an actual difference on the ground,” she said.

Every Individuals Can Make an Impact as Long as there is Passion

“You don’t have to be a scientist in a lab coat with a PhD; you can just be someone with passion, with ideas, willingness to work with others, willingness to respect the local knowledge, and to ask communities what they want and need, and provide that for them so they can work together to save the habitat, and you can do it,” she added.

“One person can make a lot of difference. Although it feels like you are very small in this big planet with all kinds of big issues, you could teach three people, and even one of them to tell the stories that you’ve shared with them with a few other people, that is a multiplier effect. You are making difference. And as long as we keep sharing of local communities and habitat, we are spreading the words and making a difference,” she said about the impact of an individual that moves to make a change.

Speaking of making a livelihood, Dr Serina then shared about the ‘Pasar Pendekar Laut’ or “Sea Warrior’s Market” that has been established since 2016 in Tanjung Kupang, where the programme under Kelab Alami helps with improving fishermen’s incomes with higher landing values and supporting livelihoods with equipment, boats and net-making that also helps preserve and showcase the fishing heritage and traditional marine ecological knowledge.

“When you’re about to dig in your crab or prawn for dinner, you don’t realise how much hard work, skills, and craftsmanship have gone into catching that – if you are buying from an artisanal source,” she said.

With climate change, their lives are facing increasing danger. These fishermen are usually in the bottom 40% (B40) of our economic percentiles, but they are the ones who provide us food, as do farmers. Yet they are the ones who suffer the most when it comes to climate change, and these are some of the impacts of climate change on Malaysian artisanal fishermen.

Fishermen are true habitat experts; they are using traditional science and observing climate change impacts, which revolve around extreme weather, increased dangers at sea where wind, storm severity, and surges are changing, changes in sea temperatures that increase algae, changes in current direction and speed, changes in species composition and seasonality, as well as the risk of fewer fishing days resulting in fewer catches, which means less income that would make them be in debt.

On one of the pages of her presentation slides, Dr Serina said the best seafood is wild and artisanally sourced. “When there are no more traditional fishermen, there won’t be any more sweet, fresh, chemical-free, sustainable seafood,” she stated there.

“Don’t look down on them (the fishermen); they don’t necessarily go to school. They have come out to Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia, and the South China Morning Post; they have been featured in countless international media. People go to them for their point of view; they taught me everything I know about the sea, and these are the people who hold all this knowledge that is so precious to us in Malaysia and really to the world of fisheries,” she said in defence of the native, artisanal fishermen.

“If you want to keep eating that crab or fish or prawns, if you really enjoy that fresh, off-the-boat, no chemicals added seafood, one, come and visit us before it runs out, and two, appreciate the effort the fishermen have put into catching that.

Think about what you can do to help them and to make a difference to climate change impacts. So that you can keep having your seafood.

Developing Climate Anxiety? A few tips from Dr Serina

Dr Serina also shared moments when her students expressed helplessness learning more about climate change and developed climate anxiety. According to UNICEF, climate anxiety can be described as heightened emotional, mental or physical distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate. She cited a student who said they feel small on what to do as an individual.

On this, Dr Serina advised the youth to not give up and get overwhelmed. “You can act, every little thing you do, counts. And you just need to take that first step.”

She shared a few tips to overcome the climate anxiety by making baby steps to changes, as simple as to attending talks and events surrounding the cause you would like to do, then look for people working in that area and join them.

Dr Serina, who has lived seventeen years among the fishermen in their village herself, aptly shared that finding like-minded people to come up with a plan and then work on it could then start a movement, as she did for almost two decades now.

She also spoke on productivity: you don’t need to start from scratch; find out what’s been done, and surely there are ways that truly work where you can add-on or make it better or spread the word about what has been done to help with the cause.

Think of less talk, more impact when it comes to climate adaptation. Youth can go to where help is needed the most and find out what really matters for them to contribute to the cause, helping with the productivity of the work needed in the system that has already been established.

She made an important reminder ask people in the community involved what they need and do not assume what they need.

“Because even if, in a bigger picture, it’s just one person – to that one person that you helped, or to that seagrass, or to that mangrove, or to that fish, or to that dog – whatever it is that you help, a whole lot of help for them. And that really is what we need to think about; every little thing matters. So don’t be afraid of getting out there and doing something,” she said.

Dr Serina then shared a few links for reference by the end of her share of the webinar, which the public can watch its recording of at NRES Facebook page video.