Marine monitoring project “Nosoko Umishobu Seagrass Colony (Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site), Ishigaki Island” and related educational activities for students of local elementary school

Conservation of endangered species of Umishobu seagrass

Nosokozaki, a headland on Ishigaki Island, is home to a rare eelgrass meadow where some 10 species of eelgrass have been observed. In particular, umishobu seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) occupies the northernmost part of the distribution area and is a rare species classified as Category II (Vulnerable) in both the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment and Okinawa Prefecture. In recent years, overgrazing by green sea turtles has brought the seagrass to the verge of extinction, and local residents have been leading conservation efforts to install conservation fencing to prevent feeding damage by turtles.
Private companies including Okinawa Cellular and Tokio Marine Asset Management have now joined the project to build a new conservation fence, cultivate umishobu plants on land, and transplant them into the conservation area. Fujitsu for its part has been using an underwater drone to monitor the marine environment and assess seagrass growth in the conservation area. The local community has offered its cooperation too, with local residents and children from a local elementary school participating in the monitoring program and other conservation activities.
In addition to expanding the conservation area, the project will measure the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) stored by the propagated umishobu and apply for J Blue Credit® (*1). By integrating the results of our decarbonization and biodiversity conservation initiatives into our corporate activities, we at Fujitsu aim to make this initiative more sustainable in its own right.

Location of Nosoko Umishobu Colony
(Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site)

Project site

The Ministry of the Environment designated this conservation area a Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site in early 2024.

• R6前期【No.69】 石垣島 野底ウミショウブ群落 自然共生サイト2024 H1 (No. 69): Nosoko Umishobu Seagrass Colony (Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site), Ishigaki Island

Fujitsu aims to create an ocean digital twin (*2) to facilitate early verification of the efficacy of carbon neutrality and biodiversity conservation measures in the ocean. To achieve this, Fujitsu is conducting research and development of technologies for high-precision digitization of the marine environment, integrating the vast amount of data obtained from a variety of sensors mounted on underwater and aerial drones, satellites, etc, with oceanographic knowledge and AI technologies.
As part of its efforts to implement the digital twin, Fujitsu conducted a survey in the umishobu conservation area, deploying an underwater drone to capture image data. The survey confirmed that umishobu seagrass was thriving inside the conservation fence, but almost nonexistent outside the fence due to feeding damage. Moreover, it was found that vegetation other than umishobu was also growing inside the fence. The intention is to use these data as training data for AI-driven analysis to calculate the umishobu cover ratio (the ratio of plants covering the seabed), and to use this in conjunction with marine ecology to build AI models of seaweed meadows.

Educational activities for local elementary school students

We held extracurricular lessons with fifth- and sixth-year students of Nosoko Elementary School in Ishigaki (Okinawa Prefecture) to discuss “the power of data in environmental conservation.” At the heart of the project was our desire to have the students understand how data plays an important role in seagrass colony (marine algae) conservation activities, and how drones, AI, and other digital technologies can enhance these activities. The goal was to help students think, decide, and act more effectively on the basis of data.
Much of the content was difficult for the students to take in because they were unfamiliar with words like “data” and “digital.” We therefore devised various ways for them to enjoy learning, including giving them a quiz so that they could think about the importance of data through more familiar examples. We also used group work to enable them to learn how to quantitatively measure the amount of seaweed and then engage in hands-on data measurement using an underwater drone in the actual sea.

Nosoko Elementary School x Fujitsu: Leveraging technology to drive environmental conservation activities!
Extracurricular activities get children thinking about the power of data

• *1:
  J Blue Credits are unique blue-carbon credits verified, issued, and managed by the Japan Blue Economy Association (JBE) following a process of screening and consideration by a third-party committee which is independent of JBE.
• *2:
  Ocean digital twin technology collects and models a wide range of data relating to the world’s vast, complex oceans which account for the majority of Earth's resources. An ocean digital twin model replicates oceanographic conditions in the digital space with a high degree of precision.