Samsung, in a brand new collaboration with Seatrees, makes use of its digicam expertise as a purposeful instrument for coral reef restoration
Samsung Electronics immediately introduced it has expanded its dedication to serving to defend the world’s oceans in collaboration with like-minded companions. Constructing upon its efforts to handle the pervasive problem of plastic waste by remodeling discarded fishing nets right into a high-quality recycled materials utilized in Galaxy gadgets, Samsung is taking a big step ahead with its newest undertaking to revive the broken marine ecosystems. The corporate is asserting assist for a brand new initiative to equip native communities and specialists on the entrance strains of coral reef restoration with cell expertise, bringing the challenges confronted by this largely hidden ecosystem into focus.
Delivering Significant Progress for the World’s Oceans
Samsung is devoted to defending the setting for future generations, a dedication that drives the corporate’s innovation and optimistic affect for each individuals and the planet. This dedication has led Samsung to concentrate on enhancing ocean well being with its revolutionary expertise.
Beginning with the Galaxy S22 collection in 2022, Samsung integrated recycled discarded fishing nets — often known as ghost nets — in Galaxy gadgets. Since then, Samsung has continued to scale its use of this recycled materials throughout all Galaxy cell merchandise,1 aiming to mitigate the injury that ocean-bound plastic2 inflicts on fragile marine ecosystems.3
Now, Samsung is taking these actions one step additional by becoming a member of forces the U.S.-based nonprofit group Seatrees and the College of California San Diego to discover new, revolutionary options for reef restoration. The Galaxy digicam expertise supplied to native coral reef restoration activists and researchers in coastal communities will help their efforts to revive reefs impacted by local weather change and air pollution by means of improved monitoring of restoration success.
“We initiated our dedication to the world’s oceans once we reworked discarded fishing nets into key parts of the Galaxy S22 collection, which to this point, has integrated greater than 150 tonnes of discarded fishing nets into key parts of Galaxy gadgets,” mentioned Stephanie Choi, EVP & Head of Advertising and marketing of Cellular eXperience Enterprise at Samsung Electronics. “This 12 months, we’re furthering our dedication to the oceans by creating purposeful expertise that helps defend and restore broken marine ecosystems all over the world.”
Collectively, with Seatrees, Samsung is giving new objective to Galaxy expertise to additional revolutionary options that enhance the well being of the world’s oceans. The corporate is supporting non-profits and area people members working in Fiji, Indonesia and the USA with Galaxy expertise to assist restore coastal ecosystems. By leveraging cell expertise, these organizations purpose to democratize and to create a extra environment friendly course of for coral restoration in reefs broken by local weather change, overfishing and ocean air pollution, comparable to discarded fishing nets.
An Modern Strategy to Reef Monitoring and Restoration
Regardless of overlaying lower than 1 % of the ocean ground, coral reefs assist roughly 25 % of all marine life, making them one among Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems.4 Thousands and thousands of individuals all over the world additionally depend on reefs as a supply of meals, revenue and coastal safety. On the present tempo of decline, reefs are liable to disappearing by 2050.5 To assist the speedy improvement of coral reef stewardship initiatives globally, this initiative will present superior monitoring expertise that leverages cell gadgets as a readily-accessible expertise platform.
Whereas efforts to revive coral reefs have existed for many years, researchers are looking for new methods to enhance this course of. Scientists from UC San Diego’s Scripps Establishment of Oceanography and native communities use photogrammetry6 to gather quite a lot of information — together with images of coral — to research the well being and development of reefs. This enables them to then develop 3D fashions of the reef, serving to researchers establish applicable interventions that mitigate the consequences of local weather change on the corals.
▲ 3D mannequin of coral reefs from images taken by Galaxy
Correct information is crucial to researchers gaining a deeper understanding of how coral restoration efforts are affecting the reefs, and subsequently assist defend a better variety of reefs all over the world. Nonetheless, capturing correct and vivid images of coral reefs isn’t a easy activity. Photographs can endure from movement blur as divers swim over reefs capturing 1000’s of images, resulting in much less correct information. Equally, water absorbs heat colours like reds and oranges, often known as lengthy wavelength gentle, distorting the accuracy of the captured photographs and leading to images which can be darker and bluer than they seem to the bare eye.
Realizing that an correct underwater digicam is essential to enhancing coral restoration efforts globally, Samsung collaborated to beat these challenges by advancing Galaxy expertise as a purposeful instrument for coral restoration. Samsung developed a custom-made digicam mode, referred to as Ocean Mode,7 made solely for this partnership. Ocean Mode optimizes the native Galaxy digicam to make sure environment friendly and high-quality picture seize of coral reefs whereas underwater. It reduces movement blur and optimizes the digicam’s white steadiness to reinforce underwater content material seize, guaranteeing correct images are despatched to researchers. This, in flip, improves coral restoration efforts by means of improved evaluation of restoration success.
“Design and implementation of coral reef restoration must be knowledgeable by dependable details about what works and what doesn’t,” mentioned Dr. Stuart Sandin, Marine Ecologist at Scripps Establishment of Oceanography and Director of the Middle for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. “Cellular applied sciences supply an thrilling alternative to develop entry to this data.”
“By constructing on expertise that’s each revolutionary and accessible, this collaboration has the potential to assist bridge obstacles and simplify the method for analysis and restoration, enabling more practical science-based stewardship at scale,” added Dr Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, Human-Centered Technologist and Director for UC San Diego’s Middle for Well being Design.
▲ Pictures captured with Galaxy S24 Extremely smartphones outfitted with Ocean Mode8
“This partnership represents a collective effort of individuals and organizations coming collectively to rebuild hope by restoring ocean ecosystems,” mentioned Michael Stewart, Co-Founder and Director of Seatrees. “By collaborating with Samsung and UC San Diego, we will share their revolutionary instruments to assist native communities effectively restore reefs at scale.”
All through 2024, Samsung supported coral restoration initiatives in areas which have suffered coral reef declines, together with Bali, Indonesia; Viti Levu Island, Fiji; and Florida, USA and over 11,000 coral fragments having already been planted at these undertaking websites. Dedicated to utilizing expertise for good, Samsung and its collaborators are united round a shared purpose of restoring marine ecosystems and preserving the world’s oceans for future generations. Grounded within the spirit of open collaboration and by leveraging Samsung’s expansive scale, the organizations will proceed to develop the initiative to extra areas within the months forward.
For extra details about Samsung’s broader sustainability efforts, please go to our Sustainability Web site.
About Seatrees
Seatrees restores and protects coastal ecosystems all over the world to reverse local weather change, improve biodiversity, and assist native communities. Seatrees makes use of a science-based method to regenerate coral reefs, kelp forests, mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and coastal watersheds. Seatrees initiatives assist area people restoration efforts and supply tangible methods for people and types to create a extra resilient planet for future generations.
1 Recycled supplies might be present in all Galaxy gadgets launched in and after 2022.
2 Ocean-bound plastic is deserted plastic waste of all sizes (micro-plastics, mezzo-plastics and macro-plastics) which can be situated inside 50km of shores in communities or areas.
3 The quantity of ocean-bound plastic used is totally different for every system. Please go to Samsung Sustainability web site for extra data.
4 Smithsonian Museum of Pure Historical past
5 United Nations Setting Program
6 Photogrammetry is the science of acquiring dependable details about bodily objects and the setting by means of the method of recording, measuring and deciphering photographic photographs
7 Ocean Mode is solely supported for this undertaking and isn’t obtainable in merchandise for common shoppers.
8 Galaxy S24 Extremely used underwater had been positioned in a water-proof underwater housing. Galaxy smartphones aren’t designed to be waterproof towards seawater.
