Welcome, Nairobi Convention Member States, partners, and friends, to this installment of the Weekly News Round-up! Please keep reading to find out what’s new in efforts to protect, conserve and develop the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region.
We look forward to continuing our work with you to create a prosperous WIO region with healthy rivers, coasts, and oceans.
News:
Global heating Supercharging Indian Ocean Climate System
Global heating is “supercharging” an increasingly dangerous climate mechanism in the Indian Ocean that has played a role in disasters this year including bushfires in Australia and floods in Africa. Scientists and humanitarian officials say this year’s record Indian Ocean dipole, as the phenomenon is known, threatens to reappear more regularly and in a more extreme form as sea surface temperatures rise……..read more
The WIOMSA Magazine: People and the Environment – Inspired by Women in Marine Science Network
This special issue is inspired by the stories from women who are making a difference in coastal and marine resource management working in the western Indian Ocean region and beyond. There is a golden thread running through this wonderful collection of stories. It is a thread that mysteriously connects a social scientist conducting research among fishing communities in Indonesia, to the daughter of illiterate farmers who becomes a university professor in Mauritius; it is a thread that binds a young Malagasy conservationist with a fascination with marine megafauna, to a community researcher helping and encouraging Zanzibaris to culture seaweed for food and livelihoods……..read more
Integrating Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity Conservation in the Global Ocean
The impacts of climate change and the socioecological challenges they present are ubiquitous and increasingly severe. Practical efforts to operationalize climate-responsive design and management in the global network of marine protected areas (MPAs) are required to ensure long-term effectiveness for safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. This paper review progress in integrating climate change adaptation into MPA design and management and provide eight recommendations to expedite this process………read more
Coral Gardeners Bring Back Jamaica’s Reefs, Piece by Piece
Coral reefs are often called “rainforests of the sea” for the astonishing diversity of life they shelter. Just 2 per cent of the ocean floor is filled with coral, but the branching structures — shaped like everything from reindeer antlers to human brains — sustain a quarter of all marine species.
After a series of natural and man-made disasters in the 1980s and 1990s, Jamaica lost 85 per cent of its once-bountiful coral reefs. Meanwhile, fish catches declined to a sixth of what they had been in the 1950s, pushing families that depend on seafood closer to poverty. But today, the corals and tropical fish are slowly reappearing, thanks in part to a series of careful interventions………read more
Revised IUCN Guidelines Demystify and Clarify Protected Area Categories for Marine Areas
This new edition of ‘Guidelines for applying the IUCN protected area management categories to marine protected areas’ involve collaboration among specialist practitioners dedicated to supporting better implementation in the field, they distil learning and advice drawn from across IUCN. Applied in the field, they are building institutional and individual capacity to manage protected area systems effectively, equitably and sustainably, and to cope with the myriad challenges faced in practice. They also assist national governments, protected area agencies, nongovernmental organisations, communities and private sector partners to meet their commitments and goals, and especially the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Programme of Work on Protected Areas…….read more
Do you have an event or story you’d like included in the weekly round-up? Write [email protected] to be featured next week!
