Progress report for
Ocean futures: solutions from science
Achievement at a glance
Progress report on the deliverable: Build socio-ecological resilience to coral reef degradation in the islands of the Western Indian Ocean<br>
<br>A network of UK-Western Indian Ocean (WIO) collaborators was brought together to address evidence gaps and support the development of resilience strategies across the WIO; this was labelled as the Coral Communities project(a Global Challenges Research Fund project).
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<br>A team of interdisciplinary researchers drew on expertise in environmental and health economics, social sciences, development, social psychology, marine geosciences, marine biology, art (including concept and design development and film making) and religious studies. The initiative was led by a partnership between Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff, Indeva Consulting, The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES) and two freelance artists in the UK and Reef Conservation in Mauritius.
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<br>The overall aims of "Coral Communities" were two-fold: to identify and critically assess the effectiveness and potential of management and development strategies to build resilience of coral reefs and dependent communities in the WIO, and to understand to what extent ecosystem services language and approaches facilitate development and implementation of such strategies.
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<br>A literature review, assessing the extent to which the initiatives used to manage coral reefs are successful in building community and reef resilience and 2 stakeholder workshops were organised; a pilot of a novel, arts-based approach for assessing perceptions of the environment and the socio-cultural risk associated with different resilience strategies was developed.
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<br>The diverse group of stakeholders from across the WIO explored future collaborations around resilient coral reefs and coastal communities.
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<br>The full workshop report and photos can be obtained here: http://pml.ac.uk/Research/Projects/Coral_Communities
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