Clad in gloves and booted for work, it starts with a handful of cement. Bruneian youth gather to mould it, but not into your typical house. There are no walls, or smooth foundational floor. Instead, it’s pitted and hollowed, shaped into curves and cavities to mimic the complexity of a coral reef.
As part of Ocean Week Brunei 2025, young Bruneians took centre stage in a series of conservation events along the country’s coast. The first event, called Reef Ball Fabricator, saw youth gather at Serasa Jetty near Muara port town, where they learned how to create reef balls using marine-safe concrete – artificial structures designed to become homes for all manner of marine life.
A snorkelling participant in the Brunei reef ball project. Credit: Poni Marine / Ocean Week Brunei.
The initiative continued on June 22 with Reef Ball Discovery where 26 youth (including a 10-year-old) helped prepare “corals of opportunity”. Here they took the next step and prepared healthy coral fragments salvaged from damaged reefs or loose on the seabed to be attached to the reef balls. Once “planted” at Pelong Rocks, a nearby snorkelling site, these artificial reefs will slowly become living ecosystems, pulsing with colour and life.
There’s something powerful in seeing young people covered in dust and sea spray, laughing as they carefully nestle coral fragments into cement crevices. It’s conservation that’s tactile, direct, and grounded in place. For many of these youth, the ocean is not an abstract idea or a holiday destination away from the hustle and bustle of life. No, the ocean is their livelihood, heritage, and home.
Brunei is a small nation, but efforts like these ripple outward. And in a region as ecologically rich and as environmentally vulnerable as Southeast Asia, local conservation efforts carry enormous weight. From the tidepools of Timor-Leste to the coral atolls of Malaysia and Indonesia, millions of people depend on healthy reef systems not just for food security, but for coastal protection, cultural identity, and economic resilience through tourism and fisheries.
Grassroots projects like this one in Brunei offer an essential counter-narrative to the idea that conservation must be dictated from conference halls or multinational bodies. While large-scale international policy has its place and is important, it is in the hyperlocal where some of the most transformative work is being done. On the beaches, in the backyards of coastal schools, among youth clubs and village councils – these youth-led efforts highlight that local knowledge, youthful energy and community ownership are central to solving global problems.
Just as coral reefs are built polyp by polyp, resilience is built action by action. Every bucket of marine-safe concrete mixed by Bruneian hands, every coral fragment gently secured, reminds us that agency lives not just in boardrooms, but in muddy boots and salt-streaked faces.
Climate action is not something the next generation must wait to be invited into. The actions that many are already doing – in small (but significant) ways – deserve to be seen, celebrated and supported. And, just like the coral reefs they are helping, youth-led movements like these are connecting communities across borders. In a way, their hands are building an Indo-Pacific conservation ethos rooted in action, collaboration and hope.
Biorock Indonesia, for example, are also working with coastal youth to restore degraded coral ecosystems; in the village of Pemuteran, their community-powered coral restoration structures have not only revived reef health but also transformed the local economy by attracting divers and scientists from around the world. What began as a collaboration between a local dive shop and Balinese villagers is now a model for reef regeneration across the globe. In Malaysia, young Indigenous sea guardians from the Semporna Islands Project are leading community reef surveys and educating others about marine conservation through storytelling and traditional knowledge. And in the Philippines, the Sea and Earth Advocates (SEA) Camp empowers young Filipinos to design and implement marine conservation projects in their own communities. A youth leadership program run by the Save Philippine Seas organization, SEA Camp alumni are driving change that is both scientific and deeply social by creating locally-led marine protected areas to developing eco-tourism initiatives that benefit both people and reefs.
Not all grassroot initiatives are about coral reefs, though.
In the waters off Alor, where sightings of the elusive thresher shark have grown increasingly rare, Thresher Shark Indonesia recognised that many local fishers had never seen one alive. To bridge this gap, the organisation began by raising awareness about the shark’s ecological importance and endangered status.
Central to this effort was the involvement of local youth who were trained to participate in data collection, conduct underwater surveys and share conservation stories within their communities. Through school outreach programs, youth snorkelling camps and training in citizen science, they have helped shift perceptions and given young people a tangible role in safeguarding their marine heritage. Their efforts have thus far contributed to the creation of local marine protected zones and sparked national conversations about shark conservation in Indonesia.
Even in smaller coastal communities throughout Vietnam, Thailand and Timor-Leste, school programs and youth groups are organising beach cleanups, mangrove plantings and coral watch efforts with minimal resources but maximum commitment.
For many across the Indo-Pacific, the sea has been a cradle of identity, livelihood and memory. These young conservationists aren’t simply preserving biodiversity but safeguarding the places that raised them, fed their families and anchored their cultural heritage. The reefs, mangroves and coastlines they are protecting are woven into the rhythms of their daily lives. It’s where grandparents once fished, where stories were passed down at sunset, where children learned to swim and understand the tides.
In defending these marine spaces, they are ensuring that the songs, languages and traditions tied to the ocean don’t vanish alongside the species that inhabit it. In every reef rebuilt, every turtle released, shark spotted or every lesson shared, they are laying the foundation for a future where culture and conservation are inseparable.
Empowering this next generation of ocean stewards will require more than workshops and hashtags. That’s a good starting point. But for this to be sustainable, the movement requires investment, trust, and a shift in who we see as “experts”.
We need to make space for local voices, fund small-scale projects, and value the insight of those who know the tides not from textbooks, but from lived experience. It also means rethinking the concept of “conservation” as not just an action we apply to something or someplace but a relationship – not something we do to the ocean, but something we do with it. A partnership, if you will.
The hope is that these new reef balls will outlive their builders. Sunk beneath the waves, they’ll become foundations (both literally and symbolically) for ecosystems to return and thrive. Fish will take shelter in their shadows. Coral will reclaim the structure, slowly cloaking the concrete in living colour. Divers may someday admire the vibrant colonies, unaware of the youth who knelt in the sand, mixing and moulding hope by hand.
They hold the promise of tomorrow. Today, they are a good reminder us the future of our oceans is not just in good hands – it’s in young ones.