David Obura (PhD)

David Obura is a founding director of CORDIO East Africa, a knowledge organization supporting sustainability of coral reef and marine systems in the Western Indian Ocean. His primary research focuses on a biodiversity hypothesis for coral reefs of the West & North Indian Ocean, through work on coral species and their current distributions and phylogeography, and coral reef resilience. This work is helping to build a regional partnership for marine management in the Northern Mozambique Channel under the auspices of governments through the Nairobi Convention, and among environmental NGOs, the private sector and civil society.

He received a PhD from the University of Miami in 1995 on coral bleaching and life history strategies. In the past he worked on participatory monitoring and research tools with artisanal fishers in East Africa, and remote-reef surveys such as in the Phoenix Islands, central Pacific, and across the Indian Ocean. He chair's IUCN’s Coral Specialist Group, am on the Global Partnership for Ocean's Blue Ribbon Panel, GEOBON’s Oceans Working Group 5 and on the Steering Committee of bioDISCOVERY. 

At the boundary between science and action, David works to integrate conservation and development through inclusive blue economy principles and links provided by global sustainability goals and targets. He works from the local scale, through fostering innovative action to promote sustainability, through regional scale alignment and integration such as in the Northern Mozambique Channel, to global scales of bringing knowledge and local-regional practice into decision-making circles.

David is engaged in multiple processes to bring coral reef science and learning into these global fora. Coral reefs are iconic, yet local to global pressures on them are worsening, and taking them to the brink of collapse. Reaching out to non-scientists and the public is essential to create the change needed for sustainability. David has contributed in multiple fora such as The Conversation Africa, the Guardian/Observer, major TV (South African Broadcasting Company, Al Jazheera, BBC) and film (e.g. Vamizi, Cradle of Coral; Chasing Coral; Blue in Focus).