Progress report for
MARECO Project: Increasing the awareness of children for the sustainable use of coral reefs and their resources in the SW Indian Ocean
Achievement at a glance
Since mi-2018, the MARECO project made significant progress to develop its crucial actions toward raising awareness in coral ecosystem and marine biodiversity functioning. Among these progress, IRD and its partners managed to:- Obtain budget
The proposal PAREO (Reef Heritage Indian Ocean in our hands) had been financed (INTERREG Europe with Reunion Island) and started in September 2019. This allowed us to have 100 more briefcases by early 2020 and increase the networking in SW Indian Ocean
- Increase the networking of partners in the SW Indian Ocean
The network of partners (ONG and marine parks) involved in the voluntary commitment had increased (Reunion, Maurice, Seychelles and Comoros : Reef Conservation in Mauritius, Seychelles national Park Authority in Seychelles and Parc marin de Moheli in Comoros), partner that will be also a key vector to disseminate MARECOs Teaching Toolbox and train children
- Increase the trainings, involvement of teachers and awareness of children to coral reef
Challenges faced in implementation
Gather other projects (eg DIDEM) with the same purpose to link science and society (children) in order to optimize their impactsBeneficiaries
Trainers, NGOs, managers of marine protected areas
Policies (mayors of the cities where the marine educational areas will be located)
And at the end, the children
Actions
- Train the trainers by spending time with them and involving them in field actions before they in turn become trainers for children at school. There is a lack of knowledge of teachers even if the school is right next to a coral reef. Taking time is very important.- Once the training has been obtained via the educational games in the MARECO case, children are now involve in artistic actions to express their knowledge through art... to ultimately become master of the marine educational area (next step in 2020).