Wovoka and the Capalonga Mangrove Development Association in Barangay San Isidro, Capalonga, Camarines Norte are converting abandoned brackish ponds back to functional mangrove habitat. Our field work early this year initiated baselining, hydrological checks, community interviews, and deployment of monitoring technology. The project's pilot area covers two former ponds in CAMADA’s CBFMA totaling 11 hectares with 2.6 hectares showing natural regrowth.
From our interviews with the community, we found that historic use of the land shifted from mangrove forest to pond aquaculture. Remaining vegetation sits along dikes and creek margins with pioneer Avicennia, Rhizophora, and Sonneratia. The fishpond substrate is silty clay with localized compaction in former feeding zones. Tidal exchange is restricted by intact dikes and undersized gates which produce prolonged ponding in the interior and dry downs in elevated cells. Drone imagery and ground transects confirm patchy canopy and adequate nearby seed sources.
Community interviews confirm multi species pond culture with shrimp, mud crab, and seasonal milkfish. Operators report a typical profit near Php 7,600 per cycle with high sensitivity to weather and market timing. Most operators are fifty-five to seventy years of age and mechanization is minimal. Reported public support is also limited.
Another Wovoka initiative is bringing technology and capacitating the community with modern tools in restoration. Connectivity was established through Starlink at CAMADA headquarters. This enables data sync, remote checks, and live calls with field stewards. Bioacoustic monitoring used AudioMoth recorders scheduled for short duty cycles each hour to capture soundscape biodiversity. A Bird Buddy camera with solar roof was installed near existing mangroves to gather image records of visiting birds with automated species suggestions. These tools form an MRV backbone that pairs continuous streams with periodic field surveys and fixed plots.
Hydrology remains the binding constraint. Tidal exchange is dampened by legacy dikes and undersized gates, while natural regeneration is strongest along pond margins with mixed Rhizophora, Avicennia, and Sonneratia. Acoustic samples confirm active evening biota and camera traps record regular bird presence, and soil cores show silty clay with localized compaction in former feeding zones.
Next steps will restore tidal flow through selective openings and low-impact soft structures, then lean on assisted natural regeneration at the edges with targeted enrichment in interior cells. Community teams will carry out works and monitoring with permanent plots, soil cores, acoustics, and camera observations streamed through Starlink for quarterly reviews.
This pilot demonstrates a hydrology-first, MRV-ready pathway for converting abandoned ponds into functioning mangrove systems that can be verified, costed, and financed. It generates reference data on survival, growth, carbon accumulation, biodiversity, and unit costs that reduce planting failure rates and allow funders to compare interventions on evidence rather than anecdotes. It also builds a repeatable package that includes tenure alignment with the PO, a community wage model for restoration and monitoring, and a digital audit trail that links field plots to remote sensing so future projects can scale confidently.
At the industry level, pilots like this close critical gaps that have stalled blue carbon pipelines. They standardize hydrology diagnostics, calibrate remote sensing against ground truth for defensible baselines, and define cost curves that help blended finance stack grants with outcome-based payments. They also create a trained local workforce and a governance template that accelerates permits and safeguards, which shortens time to first verified outcomes. The result is a bankable pattern that de-risks early capital, informs crediting readiness, and moves the sector from one-off plantings toward programmatic, verifiable restoration at landscape scale.
Partnerships and technical inquiries can be sent to tin@wovoka.org with subject line Camarines Norte Mangroves. Site visits for funders and research partners can be scheduled with CAMADA through Wovoka.
