announcer: coming up on "21st cecentury," a look b back on our most impactful stories from 2017. a young man's journey of danger and courage in mali. coral crusaders in the seychelles. and protecting japan's indigenous people. [u.n. soldier speaking chadian language]

[speaking chadian language] [man speaking french] [first man speaking chadian language]

[all speakiking chadianan langu]

[col. philipp speaking french]

[col. philipp speaking french]

[col. yacoub speaking french]]

[woman speaking french] [abdoulaye speaking french] [horn honking] [col. yacoub speaking french]

[[indistinct chatterer] [soldier speaking french] [col. philipp spspeaking french]

[speaking french] all: saalam alaikum. [prayer continues] [sppeaking french] [rititual continues]

[speaking french] [overlapping conversation] [speaking frenchch]

narrator: and over a million square kilometers of sea, the seychelles, , tourist paradise d haven for fish. woman: w we depend on our marire resoururce for everything. we don't have anything without that. narrator: the ocean--a lifeline to the islands' people. but for how much longer? woman: there e has been a riisen ocean temperatature, a and thenu lose t the corals s because theu enend up wiwith dead corals.

narrator: coral crusaders saving their reefs and their future for genenerations to come. sylvanna antat:the seychelles, with the resources that we have, the m marine resources, t that's what we have, th'' allll we haveve, really. and we depepd on our mamarine resouource for everyrything, whehether it's economic c activitieses or for tourism and fisisheries. and we d don'tt have anything without t that.

i realized itit was imporortanto conserve the ocean when i'm grorowing up p and undersrstandg the relalationship t that the seychehellois opople have with h the ocean and wiwith the mmarine ecososystem and how w me rely on it for our food, because most of ouour food ccome from m the sea. and i think i undnderstood hohow important it was for us to protect this. helena sims: evererything is connected to the ocean. we get food from the ocean, protecection from the ocean, our climate, ourur weather i is driven by p processes which are from ththe ocean. s so everythig

we d do in a w way or anoththers connenected to the ocean. i it s an intntegral partrt of our liv. wwe're only 455 square kilometes of land, compared to over a million square kilometers of oceanan. ideally you would call the seychelles a large oceanic state. the seychehelles economys driven by tourism and fisheries. they are the two main drivers of our economy. antat: the corals provide a home for different specieies in the ocean, macroinverts, fish species. but they also provide for economic activities, including diving and snorkeling. but at the sasame time, corals protect y your coastline. therere has been a risse in ocen tempmperature,e, and this hahasn

impt on yourur corals, because then this leads t to coral bleaching, and then you lose the ccorals 'cause t then you enendp with dead corals. when coral bleach, you obsererve the whihite corals,s, and once they're dead, t they are usuauay taken ovever by tough algae. the resourcrces that you had and the a activities that y you coud carry out t on the cororal rfs,, thenen you've lo t that. sims: most t of the main challelenges that our country is facing is related toto climate change.e. the reefs closer totoe inner islands are e the ones tht are e most impacted from humans. thesese reefs are more likely to die off faster. what you see is that fishermen, they have to go out further and for longer to catch the same amount of fish, the price of fish goes up, and people then have to pay more for fish,

which is s sad. [indistinct chatter] i'm m currently y working onon e seychelles s marine spatial planning initiativive. the plalan will looook to facile that we are able to continue with h our fisheries induststry, with ouour tourism m industry,, in n a sustainanable way, to ene thatat we can rerely on thesese eeconomies for f future geneners to come. so ifif you have e the right protecteded areas, the right sie in the right place, then this will minimize that impact, not only to our biodiversity but to our economy and to the people of

the seychelles. [animalsls calling]] [indistinct chatter] antat: we carry out diving activities with the intent of ccollecting g data on coral rees to ensure that the management of protecteded areas in the seychelles is effective. we're really looking at the state of the corals, especially with such events as, um, coral bleaching. we looked at cororal, measured the corals. we looked at coral recruits, and we also looked at macroinvertebrates. the i idea is to use this dataa to l look at effects of didiffet activities on coral reefs, to look at diseases, at pollution in coral reefs, more specifically to protected areas, but also outside protected areas.

mapping the reef, you can see the changes. we haveve this veryry long perif time where ththe temperature is really y high and t the corals canannot recovever, so thisis ha huge impact on your marine resource on coral reefs. we have started a coral reef restoratation project, lookingnt other ways to try a and restore coral reefs using the corals that are more resilient and growing these corals and putting them back on the reefs. sims: snpa is one of our main key partners, not only because they are the organization responsible currently for managing and enforcing marine protected areas, but they also have s several mononitoring prps which arare integral in providig data to us. when it comes to future p protected a areas, they

will be the key people for us to discuss with how well would we mannage these areas and d wht is the best approaoach. antat:t: it's very impmportant t we e constantly have thisis good healalthy coral l cover and.d... i want eveverything ththat i do should make a difference and itt should h have an impact. i think 's a realally wonderful feeling knining th whahater informioion yobrining ck, iti's gogoi to contbute to e way do cocoervation, and tha's gonna ha a posive impapa on arine conservation i seychelles.

[man speaking japanese] [singing in ainu language] [woman speaking japanese]

[kazushi abe speaking japanese]

[singing in ainu language] [woman singing in ainu language] [man speaking ainu language] [singing in ainu language] [maki sekine speaking japanese]

[mina sakakai singing]

[abe speaking japanese]

[thememe music playing]

[thememe music playing]