Specially Protocol Protected And Areas and Programme Wildlife Newsletter N°21 - February 2018 Commonly used News of the month workshop on Marine Spatial Planning and EBM/ De- Acronyms Happy International Year of the Reef 2018!.........1 cision Support Systems in the Caribbean..............4 French American Climate Talks on Ocean (FACT-O): BEST: Voluntary scheme for Workshop on Sargassum.......................................4 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Projects ●The 2017 BEST 2.0 Small Grant Call for Proposals Successful convening of the Regional Workshop on Services in Territories of Ecosystem-based Management and the Application European overseas is over: 4 successful projects for the Caribbean Region...................................................................1 of Decision Support Systems in the Wider Caribbean CaMPAM: Caribbean Marine ●Formation of a new Coral Restoration Region...................................................................5 Protected Area Management Consortium............................................................2 32nd International Coral Reef Initiative General Network and Forum ●Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) Meeting.................................................................5 Bluefinance project in the Caribbean....................5 CEP: Caribbean Environment for the Caribbean trained 16 participants in Coral Programme Reef and Human Dimensions Monitoring during SPAW PAs / CaMPAM News Workshop in Jamaica............................................2 ECMMAN: Climate Resilient CaMPAM activities...............................................6 Contents ●Hurricane Irma and hurricane Maria impacts.....3 Eastern Caribbean Marine Managed Areas Network Publications.......................................................7 Briefs GCFI: Gulf Caribbean Fisheries A new project coordinator at SPAW-RAC.............4 Recent / Upcoming events............................7 Institute 70th Annual Conference of the GCFI and special GCRMN: Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network MPAs: Marine Protected Areas News of the month PAs: Protected Areas SPAW: Specially Protected Happy International Year of the Reef 2018! Areas and Wildlife The IYOR official website was recently launched by the academic institutions, and civil society organizations SPAW-RAC: Specially International Coral Reef Initiative, to support the Third that will be coordinating activities under the IYOR2018 Protected Areas and Wildlife - International Year of the Reef. banner to preserve our coral reefs. The new website will Regional Activity Center "The new site will ensure that IYOR2018 accomplishes be a central clearinghouse for these activities." its goals, by strengthening awareness of the value of We encourage you to associate your coral reef related UN Environment-CEP: United coral reefs and the threats to these precious ecosystems. initiatives to the ICRI label IYOR, which will increase Nations Environment IYOR2018 is made possible through the combined your project’s visibility. You can submit your initiatives Programme - Caribbean efforts of "focal points" across the globe. These are online. Environment Programme governments, intergovernmental organizations, Projects The 2017 BEST 2.0 Small Grant Call for were subject to a technical review by three (3) Proposals is over: 4 successful projects for independent Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) the Caribbean Region experts during the summer. On 11 September 2017, a RAC meeting was convened to discuss the projects’ Following the selection of 10 Concept Notes as part of evaluation grids and agree on a final ranking for the the 2017 Small Grant Call for Proposals, a two-day ten (10) pre-selected Full Proposals. capacity building workshop was organised in Saint Martin for all pre-selected applicants between 15-16 The BEST 2.0 funding programme is financed by the June 2017. The workshop aimed at providing further EC Development Cooperation Instrument to set up a guidance and support during the preparation of the funding facility for small-scale field actions in the OCTs full proposal, and help the pre-selected applicants that targets activities linked with strengthen their applications. Overall, nine (9) 1) conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, persons from seven (7) different Caribbean territories 2) sustainable use of ecosystem services and natural attended the event. resources, The deadline for the full proposal submission on the 3) ecosystem-based approaches to climate change BEST 2.0 portal was 21 July 2017. The applications adaptation and mitigation. In late September, the European Commission held a meeting to [email protected] or contact the coordinator, Tali Vardi validate the results received from the various regional hubs and to (NOAA), or the co-chairs, Scott Winters (Coral Restoration Foundation) designate the successful projects. A total of sixteen (16) projects were or Tom Moore (NOAA). selected worldwide including four (4) projects in the Caribbean region. These commenced in January 2018 with implementation expected over Extras/Reminders the course of the year. More information on the awarded projects and Check out the CRC website - soon to feature an expanded “Reef their factsheets can be downloaded here. Restoration Toolkit." Watch restoration webinars Watch the ground-breaking film Chasing Coral streaming on Netflix Creation of a new Coral Restoration Consortium Special thanks from the inaugural Coral Restoration Consortium We are pleased to announce the creation of a new Coral Restoration steering committee: Consortium (CRC). The development of a consortium emerged as a ● Scott Winters, Coral Restoration Foundation (Co-Chair) priority recommendation from the November 2016 “Workshop to ● Tom Moore, NOAA Restoration Center (Co-Chair) Advance the Science and Practice of Caribbean Coral Restoration.” The ● Tali Vardi, NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology CRC is a community of practice comprised of scientists, managers, coral (Coordinator) restoration practitioners, and educators dedicated to enabling coral ● Luis Solorzano, The Nature Conservancy reef ecosystems to adapt and survive the 21st century and beyond. The ● Dirk Peterson, SECORE International CRC’s mission is to foster collaboration and technology transfer among ● Diego Lirman, University of Miami participants, and to facilitate scientific and practical ingenuity to ● Ilsa Kuffner, U.S. Geological Survey demonstrate that restoration can achieve meaningful results, at scales ● Les Kaufman, Boston University relevant to reefs in their roles of protecting coastlines, supporting ● Monica Borobia and Lucie Labbouz, UN Environment-Caribbean fisheries, and serving as economic engines for coastal communities. Environment Programme ● Dave Vaughan, Mote Marine Laboratories The CRC has been established with full recognition that saving the ● Phanor Montoya, Corales de Paz world’s coral reefs will be difficult and requires a multi-pronged ● Anastazia Banazak, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México approach. Immediate and aggressive action on climate change is ● Andrew Ross, Seascape Caribbean paramount for the long-term survival of reefs - however, carbon ● Gabriela Nava, Oceanus AC already accumulated in the atmosphere will continue to warm ocean waters to a level inhospitable to corals for decades to come. Thus, it is recognized that the problem needs to be addressed simultaneously and at multiple levels. Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network for the Caribbean trained 16 participants in Coral Reef and Human This active and targeted approach using novel ecological interventions Dimensions Monitoring during Workshop in Jamaica is one way we can buy tropical reefs time to adapt to changing ocean conditions so that they may thrive in the future. Globally - aggressive action is required to reverse climate change. Regionally - integrated networks of protected reef ecosystems are needed to ensure that corals can survive and adapt. Locally - as threats such as overfishing and pollution are managed, efforts are needed to repopulate target reefs with resilient, genetically diverse, and reproductively viable corals. To help increase the scale and efficiency of coral restoration, the CRC will be focusing on the following topical priorities for the next three (3) to five (5) years (for each priority, a dedicated Working Group is being formed to develop solutions-oriented action plans and to help establish best management practices). Workshop participants in Jamaica. The priorities include: The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN)-Caribbean ■ Scaling-up in-water, land-based, and larval propagation organized a regional training workshop entitled “GCRMN-Caribbean ■Designing projects to demonstrate multi-species ecosystem Capacity Building for Coral Reef and Human Dimensions Monitoring functioning and coastal protection within the Wider Caribbean”. The workshop took place at the Port ■ Coordinating and fostering genetics science into adaptive restoration Royal Marine Laboratory, The University of West Indies (UWI), Jamaica, ■ Developing restoration monitoring guidelines and common-access from 10 - 14 October 2017. The event was opened by 1) Christopher data platforms Corbin, Programme Officer at the UN Environment Cartagena The CRC will focus initial efforts on Caribbean coral restoration, but we Convention Secretariat (Kingston, Jamaica); 2) Suzanne Palmer, invite participation from scientists, managers, and practitioners Academic Coordinator (Port Royal Marine Laboratory/UWI); and 3) working