Press Release: Marine Experts and Conservation Practitioners Gather for Climate and Reef Resilience Workshop

Manado, Indonesia 7 May 2018 – Marine and conservation experts from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines gather at the CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat Headquarters for a three-day workshop towards a transboundary management strategy for coral reefs and fisheries within the Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion (SSME).

“We have brought together 30 scientists, marine planners and conservationists to discuss the problems coral reefs are experiencing under climate change and how they affect fisheries and people’s livelihoods,” said Professor Peter Mumby, marine expert and professor from the Marine Spatial Ecology Lab., School of Biological Sciences of the University of Queensland, Australia.

Prof. Mumby  added that the team will be developing a joint project to help address the problems throughout the Sulu-Sulawesi Priority Seascape that spans Palawan in the Philippines, Sabah in Malaysia and both Kalimantan and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

According to Dr. Sharifah Nora, Deputy Executive Director of the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI-CFF) Regional Secretariat, people of the Coral Triangle are highly dependent on coral reef fisheries for their food and livelihood.

“We face threats to our oceans such as coral bleaching, ocean acidification, overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and the like. Particularly, coral bleaching happens frequently now and this leaves insufficient time for the reefs to recover. Since in the ocean there is no barrier, transboundary natural resources management measures are crucial.  The keywords are Connectivity and Transboundary,” Dr. Nora said. 

The three-day workshop is organised by University of Queensland (Professsor Peter Mumby), James Cook University (Dr. Naomi Gardiner) and Hasanuddin University in cooperation with CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat and other University partners - Deakin University, University of Borneo, University of Malaysia Sabah, University of the Philippines,  and University of Sam Ratulangi. Representatives of the CTI-CFF National Coordinating Committees of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines also participated in the workshop together with the Consul of the Australian Government and several experts from NGOs and other agencies. The workshop is held from 7-9 May 2018 at the CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat in Manado, North Sulawesi.

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See the documentation here: http://coraltriangleinitiative.org/content/gallery-marine-experts-and-conservation-practitioners-gather-climate-and-reef-resilience-wor

For more information, please contact:

The CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat at:

T:  62 431 724 1927, +62 4317 242 026

Email:  regional.secretariat@cticff.org