Each day, I will spend at least 10 minutes learning more about protecting and restoring macroalgae/seaweed.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Participant Feed
Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
REFLECTION
QUESTION
Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks
What did you learn about seaweed and its importance to coastal ecosystems?
Macroalgae grow fast and store lots of carbon. The carbon they sequester end up in deep sea sediments. The forests they make up may be more efficient in storing carbon than coastal ecosystems like salt marshes. Macroalgae forests are found all throughout the world ocean and provide shelter for fish and invertebrates. They are one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth.
I am joining the Drawdown Ecochallenge out of respect for the land I call home. I've been an Angeleno (an LA resident) for all my life and only this year have I considered what that means to me. When I reflected on my past, in order to more clearly see my future, I realized how much I enjoyed living in LA. When exploring my thoughts about moving for work, what came to mind were the ways that California's people and natural environment reached me deeply. My family, my lifelong friends, and the beautiful nature that I've enjoyed with them, have all influenced who I am today. The land itself reflects my memories--those of my friends, of being outdoors, and of forming new relationships. The land will continue to reflects these memories long after I am gone, because, through my life, I will have altered the environment. Whether my life will have a net positive or negative effect on LA and California in the future, is something I will begin to address with this new step. I will be graduating next Spring (2026) with a B.A. in Geography and hope to find employment in fields such as urban planning, hydrology, environmental science, and disaster relief, by highlighting my skills in GIS, remote sensing, and cartography. As I ideally plan on staying in California, my fears for the future include lack of water and more intense/frequent wildfires which would put unprecedented burdens on my work, my future livelihood, and the livelihoods of my fellow Angelenos. To address these fears, I plan to do research on wetlands as a solution to the climate crisis and focus my initial Ecochallenges on 'coastal, ocean, and engineered sinks' actions. The pictures are all from a trip my friends and I took where we surveyed Northern California's gorgeous nature (the last picture is of a wetland we visited!).
