MANILA, Philippines — Miguel Fortes’ involvement in seagrass research began in the early 1980s, on an island in Germany where seagrasses used to thrive. One day, a colleague ran toward him excitedly, with seagrass in hand. “I told myself, we have a lot of this plant in the Philippines, but nobody ever bothered to study it,” said Fortes, a coastal ecologist and retired professor from the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute. Three decades later, seagrass remains the least studied among coastal habitats despite providing a plethora of highly valuable ecosystem services and nature-based solutions to tackle the impacts of climate change.