Accelerating coastal community resilience: From the frontlines to the global stage | Rare

In November, world leaders will convene in Belém, Brazil, for the thirtieth United Nations Climate Conference (COP30) to shape priorities for future climate action and direct billions in funding. Over the past 30 years, these global negotiations have too often overlooked the needs and leadership of communities like ours: those who have the most to lose from a changing climate, yet are among the most powerful drivers of change.

As leaders of municipalities and states along some of the world’s most biodiverse coastlines, we have endured the impacts of climate change for decades. Rising seas displace our families, extreme weather damages essential infrastructure, and flooding and erosion threaten food and water security, along with our people’s livelihoods. From Brazil to Honduras, Guatemala and Mozambique, and across large and small island nations like the Philippines, Indonesia and Palau, climate change is reshaping our ways of life.

But while our proximity to the ocean makes us more vulnerable, our kinship with it remains one of our greatest assets, not only to adapt, but to thrive.

When Super Typhoon Rai (also known as Odette) struck the Philippines with devastating force in 2021, Del Carmen and other municipalities along the Tañon Strait, that had restored our mangroves and protected our seas, saw nature protect us in return. Healthy mangrove forests and reefs buffered storm surges and sustained the fisheries that kept families afloat during recovery.

Mangroves also take center stage for resilience along Brazil’s Amazon coast, where communities in Pará are pairing sustainable fishing and aquaculture with mangrove protection to sustain their livelihoods as changing tides and flooding reshape local fishing patterns.

Across Honduras’s Atlantic coast, we’ve worked hand in hand with our communities to protect the nature that sustains us. We’ve helped place more than 1.4 million hectares of coastal seas—and the rich life they hold—under protection and local management. At the same time, hundreds of community savings clubs have taken root across our municipalities. Through these clubs, families pool their earnings and drive local investments in community assets, providing safety nets as fish stocks recover. Together, these efforts ensure that when the next superstorm, coral bleaching event, or pandemic strikes, our communities and ecosystems are better prepared to withstand the shock.

These are not isolated examples. They echo across hundreds of coastal communities in our countries and beyond.

Healthy marine ecosystems make us more resilient, feed our people, and store the carbon the planet desperately needs to lock away. Mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes alone store more than half of the ocean’s carbon— an estimated 100 to 150 million metric tons every year, on par with the Amazon rainforest. Protecting them is both a local lifeline and a global imperative.

“Local fishers and village chiefs in Melekeok have been effective stewards of the ocean for generations. Empowering their rights to fish these waters and manage them sustainably will hopefully be a blueprint for the rest of Palau and other island nations around the world.”

– Governor Henaro Polloi, Melekeok State, Palau.

Our municipalities, districts, and states may be small in size, but the impact of the solutions we advance and the natural assets we steward ripple far beyond our shores. Each mangrove restored, reef protected, and sustainable practice adopted contributes to a more resilient planet. When multiplied across hundreds of communities, these efforts create a force strong enough to shape national policy and drive global progress on climate resilience and ocean protection.

Through Coastal 500, the largest global network of mayors and local government leaders committed to prosperous coastal communities, we hope to demonstrate how local action, both individual and collective, can deliver change at scale.

Inspired by peers in the Philippines, mayors in Honduras came together to pledge protection of our coasts and communities, and soon others around the world followed.

Today, many of us are living out that pledge not just through the policies we advance in our municipalities—from protecting coastal waters to empowering our communities to manage them—but through the causes we collectively champion.

In Honduras, our members have urged Congress to reserve the first 12 nautical miles off the north shore for artisanal fishers, protecting local livelihoods and reefs from destructive industrial fishing. In the Philippines, mayors continue to push for a national bill to secure dedicated funding for marine protected area enforcement and to strengthen municipal capacity to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. And along Brazil’s Amazon coast, our members are preparing to develop municipal climate action plans to boost resilience and safeguard vast mangrove ecosystems.

By leaning on nature and each other, we are turning ripples into waves of change.

“What began through the commitment of a few has grown into a powerful vement of many for coastal peoples around the globe.” – Mayor Noel Ruiz, Santa Fe, Honduras

We remain committed to living out our pledge and ensuring that frontline communities are heard. As the world gathers for COP30 in Belem, Pará, the home state of dozens of our fellow members, we urge global leaders to lean into local leadership and recognize the power of local governments, big and small, to help deliver the change our planet urgently needs.

To advance this goal, Coastal 500 is proud to have joined the COP30 Presidency’s Ocean Action Agenda, where we are working with global partners and COP30 leaders to elevate the voices and actions of local leaders delivering climate solutions on the ground.

We are glad to see the growing global call to action on protecting the coastal and marine ecosystems that sustain us all. But our message grows more urgent with time: global climate goals cannot be met without the collective action of local leaders.

When financing and decision-making power reach local governments, adaptation becomes more effective and enduring because it reflects the needs and realities of our communities.

We call on the international community to lift local voices in climate discussions and draw on the knowledge of our people in building solutions. We urge stronger commitments to cut global emissions and accelerate ocean-based action that meets coastal needs. And we ask that more funding and resources flow directly to subnational governments and communities —because it is here, at the local level, where adaptation is lived and led every day.

About Coastal 500: Coastal 500 is a global network of mayors and local government leaders committed to thriving and prosperous coastal communities. The network is founded on the belief that giving the communities closest to our ocean the tools, resources, and rights to care for them is the best way to restore and protect them. Coastal 500 is a partner of the COP30 Presidency Ocean Action Agenda, leveraging the leadership and expertise of coastal mayors around the world to drive progress on the UNFCCC Ocean Breakthroughs.

Alfredo Coro II has served as the Mayor of Del Carmen, Siargao Islands, Philippines since 2010, leading transformative efforts to restore its mangrove forests and earning recognition on the UN Ramsar List. His work has resulted in improvements in health service delivery, education, sustainable fisheries management, community-based tourism development, and enhanced resilience. Under his leadership, Del Carmen’s mangrove forests have become globally recognized for their ecological and economic impact, protecting communities from storm surges while supporting sustainable livelihoods.

Henaro Polloi has served as the Governor of Melekeok State in the Republic of Palau since 2016 and currently leads Palau’s Governors Association. In recognition of his work improving the living standards of Melekeok citizens and supporting youth education, he received the Kailasa Mitra Om Award in 2022. He is an avid ocean steward, advancing policies to empower coastal communities in his state to co-manage local waters, including the 172-hectare Ngeschsiau Managed Access area off Palau’s eastern coast.

Noel Ruiz is the long-serving mayor of Santa Fe, Colón in Honduras and a leading voice for coastal communities, environmental stewardship, and Afro-Honduran (Garífuna) identity in Honduras. He is the only Garífuna mayor in Colón. Under Mayor Ruiz’s leadership, Santa Fe has become a model for community-driven conservation and resilience. Ruiz is known for fostering social cohesion, cultural pride, and community stability. Mayor Ruiz was among the first in Honduras to join Coastal 500, inspiring other local leaders to follow. 

Francisco Edinaldo Queiroz, popularly known as Estrela Nogueira, leads the municipality of Augusto Corrêa in Pará, Brazil. With over half its territory inside an Extractive Reserve (RESEX) and 144 communities, the municipality is home to extensive mangrove forests that sustain traditional livelihoods in fishing, shellfish harvesting, and family farming. Under his leadership, Augusto Corrêa has strengthened co-governance with local communities and advanced coastal ecosystem protection, blending science, policy, and traditional knowledge. A strong advocate for climate justice and the rights of traditional populations, Mayor Queiroz emphasizes that lasting climate solutions depend on territorial empowerment and the participation of Amazonian coastal communities.