Interdisciplinary and inclusive approaches to mangrove and coral restoration in the U.S. Virgin Islands

In this paper, we describe a community-based approach to Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), focusing on the Hull Bay Coral and Mangrove Restoration Workshop held on March 2, 2024. Designed as a collaborative platform using community-based, participatory research methods, the workshop brought together community leaders, fishers, restoration practitioners, and agency personnel to co-produce knowledge and explore culturally- responsive strategies for coral and mangrove recovery. The workshop is part of a broader interdisciplinary research agenda grounded in the co-development of NbS to address complex social-ecological challenges associated with climate change. The workshop functioned as a dynamic site of engagement and learning, where participants shared observations on coral reef and mangrove degradation, voiced concerns about existing restoration efforts, and advocated for locally-driven solutions. Key findings include participants' emphasis on the importance of ecological function (particularly fisheries habitat, shoreline protection, and ecosystem resilience) over extractive tourism-centered benefits, the desire for deeper engagement with local ecological knowledge, implementation of programs that engage younger generations, and the development of co-management frameworks that prioritize local autonomy. Using qualitative data from workshop notes, participant feedback, and thematic analysis, this study contributes to a growing body of literature calling for transformative, inclusive, and collaborative NbS. It highlights how community workshops can foster inclusive governance, empower historically underrepresented voices, generate context-specific knowledge that complements scientific approaches, and reinforces community members' sense of place and marine identity. This research demonstrates that participatory workshops are not just outreach tools but critical interventions for reimagining NbS through relational, interdisciplinary, and community-oriented lenses. As coral reefs and mangrove forests face mounting pressures from climate change, this case study offers insights into how community-grounded efforts in the USVI can inform more fair, accessible, and resilient restoration practices across the Caribbean and beyond.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions that protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems while addressing societal challenges, simultaneously providing human well-being and ecological benefits (Walters et al., 2016). While this definition captures the core premise of NbS, recent scholarship pushes us to move beyond a technocratic or ecological framing. Instead, NbS should be understood as transformative, collaborative, and inclusive processes that require meaningful engagement with local communities and attention to social justice (Welden et al., 2021; Kotsila et al., 2021). When designed and implemented through this lens, NbS have the potential not only to enhance ecosystem resilience but also to redress historical exclusions and promote more equitable environmental futures. Examples of NbS are diverse and range from urban green spaces that reduce heat islands and improve mental health (Kabisch et al., 2023), to wetland and mangrove restoration projects that buffer communities from coastal erosion and storm surge (Myers and Hansen, 2020). In the Caribbean, coral and mangrove restoration are increasingly explored as NbS that can support biodiversity, protect shorelines, and bolster livelihoods tied to tourism and fisheries (Narayan et al., 2016; Reguero et al., 2018). However, for coral and mangrove restoration initiatives to truly function as inclusive and transformative NbS, they must be developed with—not just for—local communities (Kittinger et al., 2016; Welden et al., 2021; Kotsila et al., 2021; Hein et al., 2018; Vandenberg, 2020).

A growing body of scholarship further underscores why the inclusion of community members is critical to the design of inclusive and transformative NbS through the lens of sense of place (Edgar, 2007; Masterson et al., 2017; van Bommel et al., 2025). Sense of place broadly refers to the meanings, values, emotions, and identities that individuals and groups associate with particular environments, shaped through lived experience, cultural practices, and historical context (Eyles and Williams, 2008; Masterson et al., 2017; van Bommel et al., 2025). In coastal and marine settings, this often manifests as marine identity, which refers to the ways in which people understand themselves in relation to the sea, including livelihoods, recreation, cultural heritage, and intergenerational knowledge (Buchan et al., 2024). Importantly, marine identities are not static; they are deeply influenced by sociopolitical processes, including colonization, which reshaped access to coastal resources, altered governance structures, and disrupted long-standing human-environment relationships in many island and post-colonial contexts (Buchan et al., 2024; Samuel, 2025; Ferdinand, 2022). Research demonstrates that sense of place both shapes and is shaped by interactions with the environment, including restoration activities (Edgar, 2007; van Bommel et al., 2025). Environmental change, whether degradation or recovery, can transform how people relate to places, which influences attachment (Buchan et al., 2024). At the same time, involvement in restoration and other “green initiatives” has been shown to strengthen sense of place and deepen emotional and ethical connections to local ecosystems (van Bommel et al., 2025). Taken together, this literature highlights that community members are not simply one stakeholder group among many, but are often those who hold the strongest place-based ties and care most deeply about local marine environments. As such, integrating sense of place into participatory NbS research provides a critical framework for understanding community priorities, motivations, and values.

The use of participatory research approaches in ocean planning, conservation, resource management, and restoration has rapidly increased in recent decades, sparked by increased understanding that these processes are inherently social and political (Cvitanovic et al., 2019; Spalding and McKinley, 2025; Sandahl and Tøttrup, 2020; Samuel, 2025). As such, the development of equitable and effective strategies requires collaboration among various stakeholders (i.e., scientists, policymakers, local knowledge holders, and community members), and a wide range of methods are used to facilitate the participation of non-scientists in many aspects of marine science, coastal resource management, restoration activities, and policy development. These methods and approaches vary in the extent to which non-scientist actors are engaged in research activities (see Ison et al., 2024 for a full review). For example, a citizen science approach often entails low levels of engagement, and non-scientists are trained to collect and record scientific data, such as data related to coral reef health (Lau et al., 2019) or estuarine water levels during storm surge events (Spicer et al., 2021). Other projects, such as the Rescue a Reef citizen science program (Hesley et al., 2017), are designed to train participants to assist in the propagation and transplant of threatened coral species. Participatory mapping is another method frequently used to include community members typically excluded from ocean planning and marine conservation in the identification and development of spatial information (James, 2025). For example, Levine and Feinholz (2015) used participatory mapping with local community members and stakeholders at sites in West Hawaii and West Maui to obtain baseline information regarding the spatial extent of human uses and activities to inform coral reef management decisions.

Although the specific goals of each approach may vary, the overarching objective of participatory research is to produce knowledge with communities rather than about them (Ison et al., 2024; Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995; Vaughn and Jacquez, 2020). The potential benefits of doing so are plentiful, such as: the democratic aim to include those who may be impacted by the outcomes in the research process itself (Newig et al., 2019); increases in relevance, credibility, and community members' “buy-in” of research outcomes and related management decisions (Aceves-Bueno et al., 2015); and a strengthened environmental stewardship among participants (Chase and Levine, 2018), which can bolster management outcomes, as well as the health of adjacent systems and future initiatives. Despite widespread calls for participatory and community-centered approaches in environmental management and restoration, however, many efforts continue to be led by external actors who do not reflect or represent the communities most impacted by environmental change, and/or use a citizen science approach in which non-scientists are involved in research activities primarily as data collectors (Grace-McCaskey, 2018; Hein et al., 2018; Kittinger et al., 2012, 2016).

At its roots, however, participatory research challenges traditional research approaches by engaging non-scientists not as research subjects, but as co-producers of knowledge (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995; Vaughn and Jacquez, 2020). The intent is to make research more democratic, through the involvement of stakeholders, and to make it more impactful, by focusing on issues that directly affect, and are meaningful to, those involved (Ison et al., 2024; Roque et al., 2022). Approaches such as community-based participatory research (CBPR) emphasize the active engagement of community members in an iterative collaborative research process whereby all participants (researchers and community members alike) work together to define research goals and objectives, collect and analyze data, and develop ways to share results and outcomes (Wallerstein and Duran, 2010). Related to the CBPR goal to democratize science, many projects emphasize including a wide range of voices and knowledges, particularly those who are typically excluded from research, management, and policy decisions. In this way, multiple ways of knowing are acknowledged and valued, and traditional power dynamics are challenged, allowing for mutual learning and the co-creation of new understanding and strategies to address locally-relevant issues (Ison et al., 2024; Caruso et al., 2015; Wallerstein et al., 2017a). Wallerstein et al. (2017b) identify six aspects of CBPR: (1) It is participatory; (2) It is cooperative, engaging community members and researchers in a joint process in which both contribute equally; (3) It is a co-learning process; (4) It involves systems development and local community capacity building; (5) It is an empowering process through which participants can increase control over their lives; and (6) It achieves a balance between research and action (p. 56).

In this paper, we describe the rationale, design, facilitation, and outcomes of the Hull Bay Coral and Mangrove Restoration Workshop held on St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands (USVI) on March 2, 2024. The workshop was held as part of a multi-sited, multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research project called Strong Coasts funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The overarching goal of the Strong Coasts project is to engage with community members in selected sites in the USVI, Belize, and Miami to co-create and document knowledge and understanding regarding the risks coastal communities face due to climate change, as well as how the implementation of NbS (mangrove and coral restoration, specifically) can help mitigate these threats while also supporting local economies and social resilience. Across Strong Coasts sites, one of the primary goals is to design and implement community-engaged research activities and processes that ensure the people who are most at risk from coastal hazards are actively engaged.

The importance of grounding NbS and restoration initiatives in community participation is particularly salient in the USVI, where contemporary environmental governance is inseparable from a long colonial legacy. The territorial status of the USVI reflects successive colonial regimes, which have shaped land and water governance, development priorities, and who holds decision-making authority (Guannel et al., 2022; Krigger, 2017; Samuel, 2025). While this history has produced a culturally rich and diverse society rooted in Afro-Caribbean, Latinx, and European influences, it has also contributed to persistent challenges, including externally driven planning processes, inconsistent urban and environmental management, and limited self-determination (Guannel et al., 2022; Krigger, 2017). As several scholars note, generational residents continue to experience gentrification, the imposition of outside expertise, and development and restoration agendas defined by external actors with limited place-based knowledge (Roopnarine, 2021; Bane, 2023; Samuel, 2025). Such dynamics are especially pronounced in disaster response and environmental conservation, where external actors frequently define problems, priorities, solutions, and success metrics, sometimes at odds with local values and lived realties (Samuel, 2025). Within this context, sense of place and marine identity take on heightened significance: community members are not only those most affected by environmental change, but also those whose identities, histories, and livelihoods are deeply intertwined with coastal and marine environments (Buchan et al., 2024).

Our team intentionally designed the Hull Bay workshop using a CBPR approach to encourage meaningful engagement of community members in mangrove and coral restoration planning processes. The workshop was designed to focus on four key goals: (1) introduce the concept of NbS, including their benefits and examples of coral and mangrove restoration already underway in Hull Bay; (2) solicit community input on how coral and mangrove restoration may benefit Hull Bay, as well as concerns about these efforts; (3) explore pathways for meaningful community involvement by asking participants how they would like to assist with ongoing and future restoration work; and (4) co-create a shared vision for coral and mangrove restoration in Hull Bay, ensuring it reflects community priorities and values. In this paper, we describe how we used a CBPR approach to design the workshop and achieve these goals, and reflect on how results can contribute to more inclusive, transformative, and collaborative NbS practices in the Caribbean and beyond.

Study area

Ecological setting

Hull Bay is located on the north shore of St. Thomas, USVI (Figure 1), which faces the Atlantic Ocean and results in more dynamic wave conditions compared with the Caribbean-facing bays on the south shore of the island. In winter, swells break offshore of Hull Bay near Dorothea Point creating a popular surfing spot, but the bay's northwest direction and a small peninsula ending in Tropaco Point creates an area of sheltered beach. Well-developed coral reefs lie within the bay and coral-colonized bedrock lines the north and south shores. The beach is centered along the shoreline and consists of coarse sand with cobbles leading to seagrape (Coccoloba uvifera) and seaside maho (Thespesia populnea) trees.

A small patch of mangroves occur at Hull Bay. White mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa) are interspersed with seagrape and maho along the northeastern stretch of the beach. Red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) grow immediately inland of the whites, but are separated from the beach by a paved road. These mangroves experience altered hydrology caused by a lack of culverts under the road that leads to Tropaco Point, resulting in surficial flooding and ponding during heavy rain events. These trees were also heavily impacted by wind and flood damage caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which hit St. Thomas as Category 5 storms. The red mangrove area is still likely connected to Hull Bay hydrologically through groundwater exchange, though this has not been directly measured at this site.

Mangrove restoration has been occurring at Hull Bay for education and outreach purposes, east of the road on private property since 2022, in partnership with the Hideaway at Hull Bay, a locally-owned and operated eco-resort, and the Mangroves in the Classroom Program (MIC). The MIC program is a mangrove education, restoration, and environmental stewardship program run by the Growing Research, Restoration, Outreach, and Education (GRROE) USVI Mangroves program at the University of the Virgin Islands' (UVI) Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES). Before the 2017 hurricanes, this small area (~1,200 m ∧ 2) was dominated by 5–8 mature R. mangle trees. These trees experienced trunk snaps that resulted in total mortality as a result of the 2017 storms. Little advanced regeneration (e.g., saplings) was present or survived the storms, resulting in only 1–2 small trees remaining post-storm. No natural regeneration (propagule production) occurred at the site in 2021; since then, one small individual has started producing propagules. Despite the site being hydrologically altered, it is an ideal site for restoration from an outreach and education perspective because it has support from the local landowner, easy access for students, and high visibility from the road. Since 2022, 1,065 mangroves have been planted at the site and monitored monthly. Overall percent survival is 27.4 percent which is comparable to other outcomes reported in restoration studies for this species, known to exhibit wide survival ranges depending on outplant site conditions (Lewis et al., 2025; Ellison and Farnsworth, 1993). From a social perspective, survival rates at this level underscore the importance of managing expectations around expected restoration outcomes and timelines, as communities often evaluate project success based on visible mangrove survival and growth, which can shape trust and continued engagement. In the USVI, survival rates can vary significantly by site, so communication with the public about this expected variability is an important component of restoration.

Coral restoration has also been occurring along the shoreline north of Hull Bay beach and into the bay since 2022, run by Reef Response. Originating in 2017, Reef Response is the coral restoration program at UVI's CMES, created to increase coral cover and diversity of coral reefs around the USVI while training students in coral husbandry and restoration techniques and conducting experiments to improve coral restoration success. Over 850 fragments of corals of 10 different reef-building species have been outplanted at Hull Bay by Reef Response since 2022. This area is easily accessible from shore for snorkelers and divers on SCUBA, making it an ideal training location for UVI students and staff. Reef Response frequently assists with the MIC program, the Virgin Islands Marine Advisory Service's Junior Ocean Explorers (JOE) and Youth Ocean Explorers (YOE) programs, and also exhibits at many local community events and high schools to educate community members on the importance of coral and the role they play in every Virgin Islander's life. Reef Response is currently working with GRROE to develop a Corals in the Classroom program modeled on the successful MIC program.

Hull Bay community

Although many other parts of St. Thomas have experienced constant and rapid development over the past several decades to accommodate the ever-increasing influx of tourists and associated businesses and infrastructure, Hull Bay is often described as a “local beach” and the “heart of the [Hull Bay] community” (Teare, 2024). While there is no official record indicating the population specific to Hull Bay, 2020 Census data available at the estate level (estates are subdivisions with legally-defined boundaries in the USVI) suggest a population of approximately 1,812 people (this includes the populations of Estate Hull, Estate St. Peter, Estate Bonne Resolution, and Estate Lerkenlund) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025). Many of Hull Bay's residents descend from French immigrant fishers and farmers, primarily from the island of Saint-Barthélemy, who settled on St. Thomas in the early 1860s (Roopnarine, 2021). Often referred to as “Frenchies,” they established two separate communities on the island: Frenchtown on the south side of the island, and Hull Bay on the north side. Today, many people in both communities continue to work as fishers, and to celebrate their French heritage, culture, and identity. This, along with other social, cultural, and historical factors, has helped the French community on St. Thomas to persist as a white ethnic minority group in the complex racial and ethnic context in the USVI (Roopnarine, 2021).

Workshop planning and implementation teams

The core workshop planning team (referred to as the Strong Coasts team) was mostly white women with different identities, backgrounds, and connections to the USVI from UVI and East Carolina University (ECU). UVI is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the only institution of higher learning in the territory; it was the first HBCU to offer a free tuition scholarship program for USVI residents. CMES within UVI has expertise in coral and mangrove ecology and restoration. Members of the core planning team from UVI included: the Director of Reef Response and Research Professor in CMES with more than 20 years living and working in the USVI on coral reef ecology and restoration; the Director of GRROE USVI Mangroves and Research Associate Professor in CMES with more than 11 years of experience living and working in the USVI on mangrove ecology and restoration; the program manager for GRROE USVI Mangroves with more than 10 years of experience living and working in the USVI on mangrove ecology and restoration; the Education and Outreach Coordinator for Reef Response who was born and raised Latina in the USVI; an environmental anthropologist pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD at ECU whose research focuses on community-engaged coral restoration, environmental governance, and stewardship in the USVI; and an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at ECU with 20 years of experience living and working in the USVI. In addition, we engaged multiple Hull Bay community members to provide feedback about workshop logistics and the workshop agenda (more in section that follows). These individuals were multi-generational Frenchies, with strong familial and community ties to Hull Bay, and its natural resources. For example, one helps lead the Northside Sportfishing Club and another is a Marine Life Restoration Specialist with Reef Response. Additional UVI graduate students and staff helped facilitate the workshop.

It is important to note that while the lead Strong Coasts team members have long-term experience living and working in the USVI with the majority affiliated with the local university, only one team member was a native Virgin Islander, and none were part of the Frenchie Hull Bay community. As a result, we cannot determine the extent to which we were perceived as outsiders by workshop participants, or how our outsider identities may have impacted who attended the workshop, the information and perspectives participants were willing to share, and the analysis and interpretation of the workshop data. Because we were cognizant of this limitation, we took several steps during workshop planning and implementation to illustrate and emphasize our long-term program commitments to the Virgin Islands community as well as the specific commitment of the workshop as a space to facilitate knowledge- and power- sharing and understanding (specific examples are described in subsequent sections).

Workshop design

To design a community workshop that allowed for meaningful engagement of participants and provided a safe and inclusive space for community members to share their thoughts, perspectives, and critiques of current and future restoration activities in Hull Bay, members of the Strong Coasts team spent significant time discussing the goals of the workshop, as well as strategies and activities that would increase the likelihood that community members would attend. To do so, we not only focused on what information and data we hoped to collect via workshop activities, but we also considered what would make the workshop interesting and engaging for community members (including youth), and what we hoped they would gain through their participation. The team centered the questions, “Why should the community attend?” and “How would this look, feel, and be interpreted from a community member's perspective?” when thinking through workshop format, length, and design. Through several team discussions, we decided on the four goals mentioned in the introduction (and described in more detail below). This allowed us to determine who we wanted to participate in the workshop, and how we could plan the workshop to increase the likelihood that they could attend. For our purposes, we wanted participants to be those who lived in or were strongly connected to the Hull Bay community. Therefore, we asked individuals we knew who lived in the community to suggest the workshop location as well as which day of the week and time might be most convenient for community members given work schedules, community events, and cultural considerations. We hoped this would reduce many of the logistical barriers to community member participation.

Another aspect of workshop planning that played a crucial role in the design of a workshop that focused on meaningful and inclusive community engagement is the development of a process agenda. A process agenda is a tool workshop facilitators can use to guide activities, and it may include detailed information including a list of activities and their duration, the objectives of each activity and how those link to the workshop goals, team members' roles during each activity, discussion prompts to encourage thoughtful participation, transitions between activities, and what supplies are needed. Although developing the process agenda for the Hull Bay workshop took a fair amount of time, developing it collectively ensured that all team members had a shared understanding regarding what the goal was for each activity and what tasks they were responsible for throughout the workshop, and it provided a thoughtful mechanism for sharing time for community voices in workshop activities. It also increased shared responsibility for workshop design and outcomes. In the case of the Hull Bay workshop, the detailed process agenda provided us with a step-by-step roadmap to follow and served as a reminder during the workshop of the primary community engagement goals. Once we had a complete draft of the process agenda, we shared it with a few Hull Bay community members for their feedback regarding appropriateness and length of planned activities, how we could make the activities more interesting and engaging, and any perceived challenges in the design that we could reflect on and revise ahead of the workshop.

Workshop implementation

The Hull Bay Mangrove and Coral Restoration Workshop was held for 3 h in the afternoon on Saturday, March 2, 2024 at a restaurant in Hull Bay that is frequently visited by Hull Bay residents and community members. The day, time, duration, and location of the workshop were selected based on feedback from community members as to how we could best accommodate potential participants' schedules and reduce barriers to participation. Participants were recruited through posts on social media, flyers posted in sites frequently visited by community members, and word of mouth. For the flyers and social media posts, we took care to use language that emphasized how Hull Bay community members and restoration practitioners could work together, setting the stage for co-design and collaboration. We also advertised that participants would be entered into a raffle to win a $30 gift card to a local grocery store, as well as indicated that participation could also count toward community service hours (a requirement for USVI high school students), and that refreshments would be provided. The flier and social media posts also included a QR code that participants could use to register for the workshop, which allowed us to have a general sense of how many people were interested in attending.

Workshop activities

Guided by CBPR approaches, we designed the Hull Bay workshop using participatory and community-engaged methods to support knowledge sharing, dialogue, and collective planning. We structured activities into sequential phases, each linked to one or more of the four primary goals of the workshop, detailed below. All activities were facilitated by Strong Coasts team members with support from graduate and undergraduate students from UVI. All workshop activities were approved by the Institutional Review Board of ECU.

Workshop welcome and introduction

Strong Coasts team members opened the workshop with a friendly welcome and brief introduction, including an overview of the planned activities, introductions to the other team members, and logistical information related to the meeting space. We also introduced workshop participants to the group values we hoped would ground the days' shared experience, including mutual recognition of the need to be present, mindful, and respectful of all perspectives, participants, and team members. An important aspect of including such a discussion at the beginning of the workshop is that it creates a collective sense of ownership over the activities, processes, and outcomes. Further, it situates all individuals involved—including workshop participants but also the Strong Coasts team members—on a level playing field, and communicates a true desire to learn from one another, without perceiving any single type or form of knowledge or information (e.g., “scientific knowledge”) as more important or valid than any other type. Introducing shared expectations such as these at the beginning of workshop activities can help to break down these kinds of invisible barriers, and this was a critical step to take if our goal was to meaningfully engage with workshop participants and for participants to truly feel comfortable sharing their honest thoughts and opinions with everyone present (i.e., friends, neighbors, researchers, acquaintances, etc.). The workshop's goals were also communicated to participants during this activity.

Icebreaker and rapport building

To establish a comfortable, open, and collaborative environment, we began the workshop with a facilitated icebreaker activity titled “Strong Coasts Bingo.” Each participant received a bingo card with 25 prompts related to their experiences in Hull Bay and the broader USVI. Participants were instructed to circulate and identify others who met the criteria listed in each square (e.g., “has surfed at Hull Bay”). Once they did, participants could mark that space on their card. Once a participant marked a specific set of squares (e.g., 5 on the same row), they were declared the winner of that round. We conducted multiple rounds of this activity to encourage broader engagement throughout the group. This activity aimed to create a welcoming environment, strengthen social cohesion and sense of community (in support of Goal 3), and support open dialogue throughout the remainder of the workshop.

Introduction to Nature-based Solutions

Because our primary goals of the workshop were to meaningfully engage with Hull Bay community members through co-learning and shared knowledge production, we intentionally included only brief presentations by Strong Coasts researchers. While we did not want participants to spend long time periods sitting and listening to team members talk about NbS, it was important to include a brief informational presentation to establish a common foundation of understanding regarding coral and mangrove restoration in the USVI and the benefits of coral and mangroves as NbS (Goal 1). Providing baseline knowledge enabled community members to fully participate in decision-making processes and supported more equitable and inclusive dialogue throughout the workshop (Israel et al., 2019). Strong Coasts team members introduced ongoing coral restoration activities led by the UVI Reef Response program, including both land-based and in-water coral nurseries that propagate priority species for outplanting in waters throughout the USVI, including Hull Bay. Key themes of this presentation included current best practices, site selection criteria, and the ecological benefits provided by coral reefs in the USVI. Researchers then provided an overview of mangrove restoration and monitoring conducted through the GRROE USVI Mangroves program. The speaker introduced the Territorial Mangrove Monitoring Program (TMMP), the establishment of a land-based mangrove nursery, recent and ongoing restoration efforts, and education initiatives such as the MIC program that supports youth engagement in mangrove stewardship and restoration, including outplanting at Hull Bay. The presentation finished with a summary of the ecosystem functions and social benefits associated with mangrove forest restoration in the USVI.

This session of the workshop concluded with a facilitated question-and-answer period to ensure mutual understanding, encourage bidirectional communication, and allow participants to shape the conversation based on their interests and concerns (Duea et al., 2022). This approach reinforces participants' roles as knowledge holders and collaborators rather than passive recipients of scientific information (Reed et al., 2018).

Gallery walks: benefits, values, and concerns

To elicit community perspectives on the potential outcomes of mangrove and coral restoration at Hull Bay (Goal 2), participants engaged in three interactive activities designed to surface local knowledge, place-based values, and perceived challenges related to restoration (Reed et al., 2013). These activities emphasized movement, dialogue, and collective meaning-making, consistent with CBPR practices that center inclusive participation and shared understanding (Duea et al., 2022). Following each activity, facilitators led a short debriefing session (lasting about 5 min) to review participation contributions, identify emerging patterns, and clarify ideas through group discussion (Wallerstein, 2020). These iterative discussions supported mutual learning and ensured accurate representation of participant input. These activities also reinforced what they learned via the brief presentations and allowed participants to think about how and why mangrove and coral restoration are important to them personally at Hull Bay.

Ecosystems benefits gallery walk

Participants first took part in a gallery walk activity, designed to collect information related to community members' perceptions of the ecological and social benefits associated with coral reefs and mangroves. A gallery walk creates a collaborative learning environment where participants circulate, review, reflect, and build upon each other's ideas. It allows for both individual thinking and peer-to-peer engagement, and because it is a largely silent activity, it provides a low-pressure way for those who may be hesitant to speak up in a large group, a platform to share their ideas (Francek, 2006). Pre-populated posters displayed commonly-recognized benefits from coral reefs (e.g., tourism attraction, biodiversity, medicinal resources, coastal protection, fisheries habitat) and mangroves (e.g., education, carbon sequestration, water quality improvement, fish nursery habitat, recreation, shoreline protection). A blank poster allowed space for participants to list additional benefits that may not have been displayed around the room. Facilitators provided each participant with three green dot stickers (for mangrove benefits) and three blue dot stickers (for coral benefits) which they used to vote for the benefits they perceived as the most important (by placing their dots on the corresponding boards). Over about a 15-minute period, participants had the opportunity to walk around to review the posters and vote, prompting additional reflection and discussion.

Values-based reflection (“Why We Love Hull Bay”)

The second activity in this series was aimed at exploring participants' cultural and emotional connections to Hull Bay with the goal of establishing a shared framework for why and how Hull Bay should be protected. Understanding how community members value and connect to specific sites or places is important because place relations and values are positively related to environmental stewardship in a variety of contexts (Gottwald and Stedman, 2020; van den Heuvel et al., 2025). Sense of place has been identified as a critical social dimension of social-ecological systems, shaping how individuals and communities interpret environmental change, define responsibilities, and engage in stewardship actions (Masterson et al., 2017). Within marine and coastal contexts, environmental stewardship is understood as a set of place-based practices, motivations, and relationships through which people care for and manage ecosystems, including coral reefs and mangrove forests, which highlights the importance of place-based values in conservation and restoration efforts (Bennett et al., 2018). For this activity, participants received heart-shaped sticky notes, wrote down a response to the prompt Why We Love Hull Bay, and placed it on a shared poster board. They were also prompted to write down and post reflections regarding how the community-based restoration activities discussed at the workshop could reinforce and deepen their connections to Hull Bay. The activity lasted about 15 minutes, ending with an opportunity for participants to share their responses to the prompts with the group as a whole, building a collective understanding of the broad range of reasons Hull Bay is valued (Goals 3 and 4).

Concerns and challenges gallery walk

The final gallery walk activity aimed to collect information about community members' concerns and perceived challenges related to coral and mangrove restoration efforts at Hull Bay. Unlike the benefits activity, the Strong Coasts team did not pre-populate the poster boards with any content, and all responses were generated entirely by participants. Again, we handed out sticky notes, then asked them to write down their concerns related to restoration activities at Hull Bay and to place them on posters located around the room. After approximately 10 min of reflection and posting, each participant received three green dot stickers (mangrove-related concerns) and three blue dot stickers (coral-related concerns), and we instructed them to place their dots next to those they perceived to be the most critical. This activity took approximately 15 min as well.

Visioning activity: co-developing a community shared vision for restoration

To support collaborative planning for future restoration activities and ensure that the outcomes of this project reflect community priorities (Goals 3 and 4), participants engaged in a structured visioning exercise designed to synthesize ideas generated in previous activities. Consistent with CBPR principles, this activity positioned participants as knowledge holders, encouraging dialogue, reflection, and collective planning (Collins et al., 2018). The exercise drew on insights from earlier activities while introducing new questions to deepen understanding and broaden community input.

Breakout sessions

We organized this activity as a 35-minute, small-group breakout session with four thematic stations, each set up at a separate table and corresponding to a guiding question for restoration planning in Hull Bay. The questions were: (1) Where should restoration occur? (2) Why is restoration important? (3) How should restoration be implemented? and (4) Who should lead and be involved in restoration efforts? Each table included a facilitator and a note-taker from the Strong Coasts team to guide discussions and record participants' responses on large notepads and sticky notes. Participants self-selected two tables and spent approximately 15 min at each station. This rotation ensured that participants engaged with multiple dimensions of restoration planning and contributed to each thematic area, which fostered co-learning and cross-pollination of perspectives.

At the “Where” station, participants were asked to identify areas in Hull Bay where mangroves or corals have been lost and to suggest locations that should be prioritized for restoration. This station utilized a large aerial image of Hull Bay, providing a visual reference for participants to spatially map their knowledge and ideas. Key, locally-relevant reference locations were labeled on the image. At the “Why” station, participants discussed the importance of coral and mangrove restoration for themselves, their families, the Hull Bay community, and the USVI more broadly, reflecting on ecological, social, and cultural values associated with these ecosystems. The “How” station focused on strategies for implementation, including questions about partnerships with the community, local businesses, UVI, and youth; approaches to funding, monitoring, and communicating results back to the community; and opportunities for collaborative stewardship. Finally, the “Who” station prompted participants to consider which stakeholders should be involved, who should hold leadership roles, and how responsibility for restoration efforts might be shared.

This activity generated a rich set of qualitative data documenting community priorities, perspectives, and knowledge regarding mangrove and coral restoration. By structuring the exercise around participants' expertise and lived experiences, the visioning activity reinforced CBPR principles of shared decision-making, co-learning, and inclusive engagement (Israel et al., 2010).

Large group discussion

To gather input on how Hull Bay community members would like to be involved in future restoration activities (Goal 3), we facilitated a structured large-group discussion designed to surface community goals, concerns, and preferred modes of engagement. Our team designed this activity to ensure that we integrate community perspectives into future research and restoration activities to promote collective accountability, share power, and sustain collaboration. We also intentionally planned this activity for the latter part of the workshop so that participants would feel comfortable openly sharing their thoughts and ideas with the group as a whole, as well as had the opportunity to think about and refine their perspectives on restoration activities in Hull Bay and how they would like to participate during the previous activities. During this session, facilitators guided a real-time brainstorming dialogue by posing broad, open-ended questions, such as: “What types of involvement would work best for Hull Bay community members?”; “What specific restoration activities would you want to participate in or learn more about?”; and, “What barriers or limitations might prevent engagement?” Further, we wanted to use this open-ended discussion as an opportunity to collect feedback from Hull Bay community members regarding which social groups or segments of the Hull Bay and USVI population are not present at the workshop, and whose voices are not typically heard in restoration planning. Open-ended questions we posed to the group included: “Who else should be included in this work?”; “How can we ensure underrepresented voices are heard?”; and “Where beyond Hull Bay should restoration be prioritized on St. Thomas?”

As participants responded and contributed to the discussion, team members recorded responses on large notepads posted visibly around the room. This visual documentation supported transparency and encouraged ongoing participant validation, allowing attendees to amend or clarify how their contributions were captured. This method ensured that the data collected reflected participants' intended meanings and fostered a sense of shared ownership over the knowledge being produced (Wallerstein et al., 2017b; Israel et al., 2019).

Shared vision share out

Following the first part of the visioning activity (breakout sessions), a few team members stepped away from the large group discussion and worked together to synthesize responses and notes from the four breakout sessions to produce a draft, co-developed vision statement for future coral and mangrove restoration at Hull Bay (Goal 4). To ensure that the vision statement authentically represented community perspectives, we presented the draft statement to the full group for feedback. As a quick and simple form of feedback, participants were asked to indicate whether they felt that the draft statement accurately and meaningfully reflected their individual and community perspectives on restoration using a visual scale (thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs in the middle). We also asked participants to verbalize clarifications or additional elements they felt were missing or misinterpreted. Facilitators documented these revisions in real time, reinforcing transparency and co-ownership of the knowledge produced. This collaborative validation step marked an essential methodological process in which participants confirmed that the shared vision aligned with their priorities, values, and expectations, resulting in a finalized vision statement that will guide ongoing and future community-engaged restoration planning for the territory.

Workshop closing

At the end of the workshop, our team thanked participants for their time and valuable contributions toward the workshop goals. We also reiterated our commitment to the collaborative development of restoration activities in Hull Bay, and invited participants to participate in forthcoming activities, including a Hull Bay community mangrove and coral restoration day event as well as surveys and interviews conducted in summer 2024. To gain anonymous feedback on the workshop, we provided a post-workshop survey for participants to complete. Additionally, we shared opportunities and resources for participants to learn more about Strong Coasts and the restoration work in the USVI, including several publications (i.e., The Coral Chronicles by Reef Response, VI EPSCoR Annual Newsletter, and the Hull Bay GRROE Dashboard cards). We also collected contact information from everyone who wanted to be updated on future events. Lastly, we invited participants to engage directly in restoration efforts through an optional field trip after the close of the workshop. These opportunities included visiting the mangrove restoration site at Hull Bay, planting and naming a mangrove propagule at a table in the workshop space, or feeding corals in the coral display tank (also in the workshop space). These hands-on activities provided participants with a tangible experience of the concepts discussed earlier in the day. For many, it was their first opportunity to feed corals or observe restored mangroves, furthering the Strong Coasts team's efforts to increase engagement in restoration efforts.

Workshop participants

A total of 45 individuals from St. Thomas, USVI participated in the workshop, including nine minors who participated with their parent or guardian. They ranged in age from 8 to 73 years, and served a variety of roles in the Hull Bay and USVI communities, including educators, small business owners, fishers, government employees, and university students. As mentioned previously, we hoped that workshop participants would be community members with ties to Hull Bay. On the workshop registration form, we asked participants how they considered themselves to be a part of the Hull Bay community. Of the 34 participants who responded to this question (minors did not complete a separate registration form), 80 percent indicated they were Hull Bay residents or had familial ties to Hull Bay, and 82 percent indicated they worked and/or spent time in Hull Bay (participants were able to select multiple responses). Only three participants indicated that they did not consider themselves to be part of the Hull Bay community.

Gallery walks: benefits, values, and concerns

Ecosystem benefits gallery walk

Of the 74 total votes cast by workshop participants regarding what they perceived to be the most important benefits provided by coral reefs, the largest percentage (36 percent) went toward “fisheries habitat” (Figure 2). “Coastal protection” received the second highest number of votes (26 percent), followed by “biodiversity” (18 percent) and “medicinal source” (14 percent). “Tourism” received the fewest votes (4 percent). On the blank poster, participants added two additional benefits, “corals help create the surf break” and “coral help provide the air we breathe,” and each received one vote.

Of the 79 total votes cast by workshop participants regarding what they perceived to be the most important benefits provided by mangroves, the largest percentage (23 percent) went toward “shoreline protection” (Figure 3). “Fisheries nursery habitat” received the second highest number of votes (15 percent), followed by “biodiversity” (14 percent). “Carbon sequestration” and “water quality improvement” each received 11 percent of the votes. Several remaining pre-populated benefits received votes but were not ranked among the five most important to participants: “biodiversity” received six percent of the votes; “safe harbor for boats” received five percent; and “education,” “aesthetics,” and “recreation” each received three percent. On the blank poster, participants wrote in two additional benefits: “mangroves provide oxygenation” (5 percent) and “connection to our environment” (one percent).

Taken together, participants' prioritization of coral and mangrove benefits reflects place-based values that align closely with scholarship on sense of place and marine identity in coastal contexts. The emphasis on fisheries habitats, shoreline and coastal protection, biodiversity, and culturally-embedded benefits—alongside participant-added values—suggest that these benefits are not understood solely in technical or economic terms. Rather, the results from the ecosystem benefits gallery walk indicate that participants experience these benefits as culturally-embedded traits of marine identity (Buchan et al., 2024), through which relationships to coral reefs and mangroves are shaped by livelihoods, recreation, intergenerational knowledge, and everyday engagement. This interpretation is consistent with research demonstrating that sense of place influences how communities value ecosystems through lived experience, cultural practice, and historical context (Edgar, 2007; Masterson et al., 2017; van Bommel et al., 2025). The relatively low importance assigned to tourism further reinforces a relational framing of coral and mangrove ecosystems that contrast with dominant, externally-oriented narratives often emphasized in conservation and restoration planning (Samuel, 2025). Viewed through this lens, the benefits identified in this gallery walk highlight how community-defined benefits of restoration are deeply intertwined with marine identity and underscore the importance of centering community perspectives in participatory NbS design.

Values-based reflection (“Why We Love Hull Bay”)

Participant responses describing why they love Hull Bay were grouped by theme and visualized in a word cloud (Figure 4). We transcribed participant responses verbatim into a single document. Prior to analysis, specific activity references (kayaking, fishing, surfing, and snorkeling) were standardized and coded under the broader category “recreation” to consolidate conceptually similar responses. After importing the cleaned document into NVivo 14, we conducted a Word Frequency Query to identify the 50 most frequently occurring words across responses. Using NVivo's stemming function, we then grouped related word forms (e.g., singular and plural variants shown as a single term) and applied a minimum word length of three characters. To improve clarity, we removed non-analytic or context-specific terms (e.g., “sense,” “see,” “Hull,” and “Bay”) through a customized stop-word list. We then visualized results as a word cloud in which word size reflects frequency of occurrence, and displayed all words horizontally to enhance readability and accessibility.

Place-based valuations are further reinforced by the word cloud results, which highlight how participants articulate their relationships to Hull Bay in affective and relational terms. The prominence of the words such as “home,” “care,” and “neighborhood,” alongside recreation-related activities, reflect dimensions of sense of place (Eyles and Williams, 2008; Masterson et al., 2017; van Bommel et al., 2025). When we interpret these findings alongside the gallery walk results, they suggest that ecological benefits are understood not merely as functional ecosystem services, but as culturally-embedded expressions of marine identity tied to livelihoods, recreation, and intergenerational relationships with the sea (Buchan et al., 2024).

Concerns and challenges gallery walk

For this activity, participants were asked to write down what they perceived to be concerns or challenges related to coral and mangrove restoration in Hull Bay, and to post the notes on blank boards. A total of 26 notes were posted on the boards, and we asked participants to use their blue and green dots to vote for what they felt were the greatest challenges or concerns. A total of 35 votes were cast related to mangroves, and 47 related to corals. Unfortunately, for several reasons, such as multiple concerns written on a single note or multiple notes listing similar but slightly different ideas, we were not able to accurately determine the number of votes cast per concern. In addition, although our team envisioned that this activity would prompt participants to share their perspectives on concerns or challenges related to coral and mangrove restoration activities in Hull Bay specifically, it became clear during the workshop that many contributions reflected broader ecosystem health issues and general challenges to coral and mangrove conservation in the USVI. For these reasons, we analyzed the data qualitatively, summarizing the types of concerns added by participants for corals and mangroves.

Regarding concerns and challenges related to coral restoration (and conservation), many responses focused on the damage caused by extreme weather events (e.g., hurricanes) and long-term changes (e.g., rising sea temperatures). A second theme regarding participants' concern related to corals were impacts due to tourists and tourism, such as concerns that tourists will step on and damage coral, tourists using sunscreen that is not reef safe, and the various impacts caused by the large number of cruise ships and tourists visiting the island. A third main theme emphasized concerns related to overdevelopment and the associated damages due to runoff and sedimentation.

Regarding concerns and challenges related to mangrove restoration (and conservation), all of the responses fell into two categories—overdevelopment and weather. In addition to one note that simply listed “overdevelopment,” responses also mentioned specific activities such as mangroves being cut down to build roads and parking lots. In terms of weather-related concerns, a single note listed “weather,” and received several votes. During discussions with participants, team members learned these concerns related to impacts from storm surge and flooding.

Visioning activity: co-developing a community shared vision for restoration

We reviewed the qualitative data from the breakout sessions and large group discussion, and used content analysis to identify patterns and themes related to the guiding questions.

Breakout sessions

Where should coral and mangrove restoration occur?

Participants suggested several locations within Hull Bay where coral and mangrove restoration could occur. These included areas along the east and northeast sides of Hull Bay, areas extending westward beyond the boat anchor zone, and Palm Beach, where runoff from the wastewater treatment facility was identified as an issue. Some participants stated that restoration should take place “everywhere,” indicating broad interest in restoration throughout the bay.

Why is restoration important?

Participants identified a broad range of reasons why coral and mangrove restoration is important for Hull Bay. Many responses focused on the need to preserve the ecological functions and services provided by corals and mangroves, including biodiversity, sustaining marine ecosystems, filtering runoff, attenuating waves, preventing beach erosion, and contributing to oxygen production. Participants also noted environmental protection-related reasons, such as preserving green space, protecting land, and ensuring corals and mangroves remain present for future generations. Additional responses highlighted the need to preserve corals and mangroves in Hull Bay for recreational activities, such as snorkeling, fishing, diving, and ecotourism. Participants also emphasized the important role restoration plays in raising environmental awareness and providing opportunities for children to engage with the natural environment. Participants also mentioned the potential for economic benefits from corals and mangroves.

How should restoration be implemented?

Participants identified multiple approaches to consider when implementing restoration efforts at Hull Bay. Active community involvement remained a consistent priority. Attendees recommended prioritizing engagement of local residents, families, schools, and youth groups. Participants also underscored the need for varied opportunities for participation, including those they could do on their own time, as opposed to only via scheduled group activities. If community members could complete activities on their own, such as taking photographs or conducting regular counts of corals and mangroves to monitor changes or participating in at-home mangrove propagation programs that could support nurseries or restoration sites, it would help ensure that individuals with varying schedules can take part.

Workshop participants also suggested that groups working on restoration in Hull Bay should develop partnerships with local businesses and that hosting events (e.g., a bingo night) with these partners could assist with fundraising for restoration projects. Additionally, through these partnerships, practitioners could provide tours for those working in various sectors (i.e., the tourism industry) to show more people how corals and mangroves are impacted. Lastly, participants identified opportunities to incorporate education into restoration activities. Schools at multiple levels—including elementary, high school, and homeschool groups—were frequently mentioned as priority audiences for engagement. Participants also noted that coral and mangrove restoration could serve as a way to demonstrate to USVI residents how local ecosystems respond to different interventions.

Who should lead and be involved in restoration efforts?

When asked who should lead and be involved in restoration efforts in Hull Bay, participants identified a variety of groups. While they acknowledged the important role that restoration experts and those who work for government agencies play in designing and implementing restoration activities and ensuring regulations and permitting processes are followed, many community members also stressed the importance of including residents who are new to the field. Encouraging those newly interested in restoration and providing training in a variety of activities (e.g., land-based, water-based, at home, etc.) can increase broader awareness and understanding of the need for restoration activities in Hull Bay, St. Thomas, and the USVI. Workshop participants again mentioned the need to involve youth in restoration activities, and encouraged the continuation of school programing such as the MIC and environmental programming offered through UVI, such as YOE and JOE. Other groups suggested by workshop participants include local families, non-profit organizations, and community-led monitoring groups (which would need to be established). Several participants noted the importance of involving leaders who are not affected by existing relationship dynamics in the area.

Large group discussion

Through this discussion, we were able to identify opportunities for meaningful community involvement in coral and mangrove restoration efforts, while also gaining insight into perceived barriers such as accessibility, communication gaps, and uncertainty regarding the roles of different stakeholders. This information will inform future project design, partnerships, and stewardship pathways that align ecological goals with the needs, capacities, and priorities of the Hull Bay community.

Opportunities and preferred approaches to restoration

When asked what approaches to restoration would work, Hull Bay community members suggested a wide range of strategies for how practitioners can meaningfully involve them in initiatives. They stressed the importance of flexible and accessible approaches to participation that accommodate diverse schedules, interests, and community needs. Participants frequently mentioned activities that don't require swimming, diving, or trekking through mangroves, such as helping at land-based coral nurseries and “adopt a mangrove” programs that begin at home (this may present permitting issues, however). Again, participants shared their interest in finding ways they can contribute on their own time, such as taking photographs and counts to assist with monitoring. Participants also mentioned outreach and communication strategies, including the use of social media or websites to advertise activities, making sure to provide clear instructions about expectations, and involving a “local champion” to lead field trips or share information. Additional suggestions included special events such as lionfish tournaments, tours of areas affecting mangroves and corals, and kayaking excursions with local leaders. Participants highlighted the importance of engaging a wide range of groups, including faith-based organizations, tourists, school groups, corporate groups, and others in the broader USVI community. Participants mentioned the benefit of small incentives, such as providing snacks or gift cards to encourage participation.

Barriers to participation and potential communities for engagement

During the facilitated discussion, participants described multiple barriers that could limit involvement in mangrove and coral restoration activities. Skill- and access-related concerns were frequently mentioned, including the training, experience, equipment, and insurance requirements to SCUBA dive, as well as fears of the ocean, sharks, or drowning. Participants also mentioned time constraints as a challenge, along with communication-related barriers, which included unclear expectations regarding tasks or schedules and insufficient outreach or advertising. Additionally, participants highlighted knowledge gaps, noting a general lack of understanding about what causes harm to mangroves and corals. We also asked participants to identify groups who they believe are underrepresented in restoration efforts. The Hull Bay neighborhood itself was highlighted as a community whose perspectives are not always heard. Participants also suggested additional neighborhoods on St. Thomas that could benefit from similar restoration initiatives, including Lindquist (for coral restoration), Secret Harbor (within the St. Thomas East End Reserves), and Sapphire Beach.

Shared vision share out

From the results we presented above, we identified themes to include in a shared vision for future restoration activities at Hull Bay. The resulting statement emphasized the importance of maintaining a healthy ecosystem, preserving existing ecological benefits, and fostering connections with the environment across generations. The co-developed vision read:

We, the UVI-led team and the Hull Bay community, envision a thriving ecosystem across the bay where the co-preservation of current ecosystem benefits and the fostering of ecological stewardship for current and future generations are paramount. Our commitment extends beyond the present, as we recognize our collective responsibility to safeguard the environment for generations to come.

This paper describes how we used a CBPR approach to plan and facilitate a community-based workshop as a first step toward developing more inclusive, collaborative, and transformative NbS via coral and mangrove restoration at Hull Bay. Guided by four interrelated goals, our approach demonstrates how participatory workshops can function as more than outreach mechanisms. Instead, they can serve as critical interventions for reimagining restoration as a relational, justice-oriented, and place-based process.

The Hull Bay workshop fostered a comfortable and inclusive environment where participants could learn about corals and mangroves as NbS to the impacts of climate change. Our team described current restoration efforts at Hull Bay and provided space for participants to ask questions and provide their insights and perspectives about how the Strong Coasts team could move forward with our work in a way that aligns with and promotes the goals of the community. This collaborative effort allowed participants to express how they would like to be involved in this work moving forward, the types of programs and activities they would like to see, who should be involved, and how this work could increase environmental stewardship for generations.

Interpreting key findings: community priorities and restoration needs

Several cross-cutting themes emerged from the workshop results and have direct implications for coral and mangrove restoration at Hull Bay and across the USVI. First, participants consistently emphasized the importance of ecological function, particularly fisheries habitat, shoreline protection, and ecosystem resilience, over extractive tourism-centered benefits. This finding challenges dominant economic framings of coastal ecosystems in small island contexts and aligns with scholarship emphasizing relational and subsistence-oriented values in coastal communities (Kittinger et al., 2016; Welden et al., 2021). Interpreted through a sense of place lens, this prioritization reflects values grounded in everyday relationships with the marine environment. Such place-based valuations are closely tied to marine identity through which livelihoods, recreation, and cultural meaning shape how coastal communities understand and care for coastal ecosystems (Buchan et al., 2024; Edgar, 2007).

Second, the workshop revealed strong interest in deeper engagement with local ecological knowledge and intergenerational learning. Participants repeatedly emphasized youth engagement, school-based programming, and accessible education opportunities as central to successful restoration. These findings reinforce arguments that NbS are most effective when they strengthen social relations and stewardship capacities alongside ecological outcomes (Chase and Levine, 2018; Kotsila et al., 2021). During the workshop, youth voices were also centered by other participants and the Strong Coasts team. Increasingly, the critical role of youth engagement in ecological restoration is being recognized (Lauman et al., 2023), and it is one that the Hull Bay community clearly values as evidenced by this workshop. Finally, participants' responses to the question regarding who should lead and participate in restoration activities in Hull Bay (and the broader USVI) point to strong desire for shared leadership and co-management approaches. Although they recognized that involvement of government agencies is important for regulatory support and funding, and acknowledged the necessary technical expertise of UVI research teams for restoration efforts, community members emphasized the need for in-depth engagement with community-based groups and Hull Bay families and residents. This suggests that restoration initiatives perceived as primarily externally driven or institutionally dominated may struggle to gain long-term legitimacy without deliberate power-sharing mechanisms.

Reflections on CBPR as a process for achieving workshop goals

The intentional use of CBPR principles shaped both the design of the Hull Bay workshop and our ability to achieve its stated goals. Consistent with CBPR's emphasis on co-learning, shared power, and the integration of multiple ways of knowing (Wallerstein et al., 2017b; Vaughn and Jacquez, 2020), the workshop placed community knowledge, values, and lived experiences at the foreground alongside scientific expertise. Rather than positioning researchers as the primary knowledge holders, the process agenda, facilitation strategies, and activity sequencing were explicitly designed to center community voices and encourage dialogue across diverse participants. This approach was particularly evident in the gallery walks, visioning exercises, and large-group discussions which created multiple entry points for participation and reduced reliance on formal scientific language or public speaking. These methods supported Goal 2 by surfacing locally-grounded understandings of ecosystem benefits and concerns, while also advancing Goals 3 and 4 by enabling participants to collectively articulate priorities, imagine future pathways, and validate a shared vision for restoration. By foregrounding community knowledge and lived experience, the CBPR process also created conditions that allowed participants to articulate and reaffirm shared, place-based values. This aligns with research showing that participation in environmental and restoration initiatives can strengthen sense of place and deepen ethical and emotional connections to local ecosystems (van Bommel et al., 2025; Edgar, 2007). The iterative feedback loops embedded throughout the workshop—such as facilitated debriefs and real-time revision of the vision statement—reinforced transparency, accountability, and co-ownership of outcomes, key tenets of CBPR.

Situating findings within broader literature on NbS and participatory restoration

Taken together, the findings from the Hull Bay workshop contribute to a growing body of literature calling for a shift away from technocratic NbS toward more transformative and community-oriented approaches (Welden et al., 2021; Kotsila et al., 2021). In the Caribbean, and particularly in the USVI, restoration efforts unfold within sociopolitical contexts marked by historical marginalization, economic precarity, and uneven access to decision-making. As such, the effectiveness of NbS should not be evaluated solely through ecological metrics, but must also consider who participates, whose knowledge counts, and who benefits. By documenting a CBPR-informed workshop process, this study responds to calls for empirical examples of how participatory approaches can be operationalized in coastal restoration and ocean planning (Cvitanovic et al., 2019; Ison et al., 2024). The qualitative data generated through this process—workshop notes, participant feedback, and co-developed visioning outputs—demonstrate how community workshops can produce context-specific knowledge that complements scientific assessments and supports more legitimate, locally grounded decision-making.

Implications for future coral and mangrove restoration in Hull Bay

Importantly, the outcomes of this workshop have already influenced how the Strong Coasts team and partner organizations are moving forward with restoration planning in Hull Bay and beyond. For coral restoration, community emphasis on education and accessibility has reinforced the prioritization of nearshore sites that can support student training, youth engagement, and community learning. These priorities align with developing initiatives such as the Corals in the Classroom program and have informed site selection criteria that explicitly consider educational utility alongside ecological suitability. For mangrove restoration, workshop findings have strengthened commitments to land-based and low-barrier stewardship opportunities, including continued support for the Mangroves in the Classroom program, selection of visible restoration sites that facilitate regular community interaction, and community outplanting events. The emphasis on youth engagement and intergenerational learning has also guided the allocation of financial and logistical support to youth-focused organizations such as JOE and YOE, as well as the development of new stewardship activities being advanced through research and collaborative planning.

Across both coral and mangrove restoration efforts, the shared vision articulated by participants now serves as a guiding framework for future engagement, reinforcing the importance of preserving ecosystem benefits while fostering long-term stewardship and collective responsibility. In this way, the workshop functioned not only as a data collection exercise, but as a decision-shaping intervention that continues to inform practice. Critically, the continuation of this shared vision is not limited to the duration of NSF Strong Coasts funding. We intentionally designed this work to connect the shared vision developed through the workshop to ongoing coral and mangrove restoration efforts at Hull Bay that predate and operate independently of Strong Coasts. These restoration efforts are part of broader UVI-led programs that will continue at Hull Bay and other parts of the USVI after the conclusion of the Strong Coasts project, providing institutional continuity, sustained community engagement, and pathways toward emergent co-management relationships grounded in long-term local presence rather than project-specific timelines.

Limitations and future directions

While the Hull Bay workshop generated rich insights, several limitations warrant consideration. Participation was limited to those able to attend a single, 3-h event, and despite efforts to reduce barriers, some community voices remain underrepresented. Further, as mentioned previously, and as is typical with community-engaged research efforts, we are not able to determine the extent to which our team were perceived as outsiders by workshop participants, or how our outsider identities may have impacted who attended the workshop, the information and perspectives participants were willing to share, and the analysis and interpretation of the workshop data. Additionally, demographic data were incomplete, limiting the ability to fully assess representativeness, as well as our ability to analyze the data for differences across demographic groups. Future workshops and engagement efforts should incorporate more systematic demographic data collection and explore complementary methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and longitudinal engagement, to reach individuals unable or unwilling to participate in public workshops. Future research should also examine how the co-developed vision and participatory planning processes translate into long-term governance outcomes, including the establishment of co-management arrangements and sustained stewardship practices. Comparative analysis across Strong Coasts sites in the USVI, Belize, and Miami may further illuminate how participatory NbS approaches function across different political and ecological contexts.

This study demonstrates participatory workshops grounded in CBPR principles and designed with deep understanding of a community's sociopolitical context can play a critical role in advancing more inclusive and transformative NbS. In Hull Bay, the workshop created space for community members to articulate values, share concerns, and actively shape restoration pathways in ways that challenge extractive and technocratic models of environmental management. By centering relationships, local knowledge, and shared responsibility, this approach reframes coral and mangrove restoration not simply as ecological interventions, but as ongoing social processes essential to building resilient and just coastal futures in the Caribbean and beyond.