In 2017 Hurricane Irma flooded Miami. When the flood waters receeded, I founded Forces of Nature, determiend to low the impacts of climate change. I successfully advocated for my city to declare a climate emergency in 2019, and led efforts to restore 6 miles of mangroves during 2020. When an oceanfront apartment building collapsed in 2021, killing 98 of neighbors, I knew I had to do more. I began planting mangroves, and educating on the benefits, determined to get a million mangroves in the ground by 2030. But when a late season hurricane in 2022 wiped out a huge planting effort, I knew I had to come up with an alternative solution to help new plants survive the intertidial waters. I obtained 3 seed grants, secured a small lab space at the Miami Seaquarium Educational Center, and began researching ways to increase planting success rates, as well as expanding the project from restorations to more plantings. My goal is to get 1 million mangroves in the ground by 2030, to scale the project and mangroves as nature's best carbon sequestration solution around the world, and to one day use biotechnology to increase mangrove root mass and increase carbon capture.

With sea levels rising at their fastest pace in 2800 years, and 20 percent of global mangroves lost worldwide since 1980 due to human activity, the world's 600 million people residing in coastal communities are battling erosion, flooding, and forced displacement.  My own low-lying community is expected to be uninhabitable by 2050. The A Million Mangroves Initiative was initially launched to combat beach erosion and protect coastal communities. But scientists have now determined that heat poses a greater threat to the livability of the planet than sea rise. To keep temperatures down, we must remove 10GtCO2 from the atmosphere annually by 2030, and direct carbon technologies are too expensive and too limited in capacity to make a dent in that tonnage. If we can use technology to amplify what plants have already been doing for 1 billion years, we can bring down the heat and preserve the planet. During beach restorative efforts, I learned that mangroves sequester carbon at 10 times the rate per unit of evergreens, and store more carbon than any other tree on Earth. They are nature’s best solution to preserving our planet. Determined to rewrite a sustainable narrative for coastal communities, the A Million Mangroves Lab is implementing new techniques amplfying photosynthesis, increasing planting success rates by as high as 70%.

The Initiative conserves mangroves through clean ups, accelerates restoration through research aimed at improving planting success rates, and scales up the action by educating on the benefits of mangroves. Community clean ups of mangrove roots are organized via social media. Donated biodegradable oversized coffee bean bags are repurposed for trash collection, allowing nature to do what it does best - restore itself naturally. Where mangroves have been lost, propagules can be grown and replanted. However, intertidal waters often wash away young plants before they take root. Intent on overcoming high failure rates, I am uniquely amplifying the wonders of photosynthesis by growing young propagules in cups of water rather than soil, and placing them in direct sunlight 8+ hours a day. When roots reach 3 inches at about 2 months, the mangroves are singularly planted in 8 inch plastic containers with excess room for roots to flourish, and again overwatered by flooding the containers an inch above the soil twice a day. Saltwater is slowly introduced beginning at 12 months, and a longer than typical growing period of 18 months is used before replanting.  Growing taller plants with larger rootballs, replanting efforts are now beating published odds, and hopefully one day beating climate change.

Locally, we've built a team of 180+ volunteers, quelled ecoanxiety, restored 6 miles of Florida mangroves, planted 2249 propagules, and distributed 900 plants with QR codes providing planting techniques. I've also scaled the research with US State Department visitors from 5 continents, educated 2500 youth in 16 countries via an annual Climate Summit, and educated 29K YouTube viewers on the solution. With heat records shattering records on every continent this summer, the need for carbon sequestration is now clear. The Initiative’s trajectory aims to one day utilize biotech to amplify the carbon capture plants have been undertaking for a billion years, and recent steps toward that plan have included initiating DNA sequencing at Salk Institute, and testifying before the White House Environmental Justice Council to advocate for funding for plant carbon sequestration research. The project will be scaled at the United Nations' upcoming World Climate Conference in Dubai.

While humanity needs political power and technological know-how to solve the climate crisis, the driver for change is what the A Million Mangroves Initiative is building here: community will. A pouch and a note symbolize the impact of the Initiative. The pouch is from Central African conservationists who came to Miami seeking solutions to protect their coastal communities.  After touring our newly planted mangroves, they gave me African beads symbolizing hope. Though the pouch bears markings in Lingala, and our visitors have long since returned to their homes 6,181 miles away, I don’t need Google Translate to hear the inspiring message of collaboration.  Some of our techniques are now being implemented in Gabon and Cameroon. Beneath the pouch, I keep a note from Aidy, a second-grader from Virginia, who watched the “A Million Mangroves” video in school and motivated his classmates to clean up a dam in their community. The Forces of Nature website posted his story, and Augustin jumped in with a planting in Ecuador. And it builds from there. Mine is the last generation who can save our planet. If not us, who? If not now, when? Emboldened by those in my community who show up to answer those questions every week, and those around the globe who’ve taken a piece of this project and run it in their own direction, I’m determined to rewrite the climate narrative.