Background

Coral Triangle Area consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste is recognized not only as the center of marine biodiversity, but also the most important refugee for world’s marine life.   Indonesia is located at the heart of “The Coral Triangle”, a rich repository of global biodiversity.  As the largest archipelago in the world, Indonesia also has the largest coral reef area of any country in the world. Unfortunately, human activities have placed substantial pressures on these fragile ecosystems; and have caused serious coral reef degradation.  This has created a situation where the existence of healthy coral reefs is always threatened.

At the moment, many coral reefs are damaged by destructive fishing, ship anchoring, toxic waste, coral mining, and poor water quality from sediments and nutrients coming from land based activities.  As a result only 6 percent of the coral reefs in the country remain in very good condition.

The 2009 Manado Ocean Declaration and CTI Leaders’ Declaration on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security stressed the need for national strategies for sustainable management of coastal and marine ecosystems that deliver valuable goods and services and that have significant potential for addressing the adverse effects of climate change.  The negotiations at Manado were contentious and were focused on the environment and its relationship to national economies.  The balancing of interests appears to be impossible between those economies that want to preserve their standard of living and those emerging economies that wish to reach improved levels of prosperity.

The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries through Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program (COREMAP II), in conjunction with “Sail Wakatobi-Belitung”, will conduct an international symposium to discuss the above-mentioned issues to be held on 28 – 30 September 2011. The symposium will bring together policy makers, scientists, NGO’s, and the private sectors to find solutions for coral reef management, with special topic “Coral Reef: Global Threats and Opportunities”

The Objective

The primary objective of the symposium is to share knowledge, information and experiences in management, academic studies, and contemporary approaches for coral reef ecosystem management.  An additional objective of the symposium is to ensure that action plans are made that will respond to climate change impacts on coral reefs, as identified at the World Ocean Conference of 2009.

The Symposium Topics

1. Climate Change and Coral Reef Health: Coral reefs provide essential habitat for the world’s greatest marine biodiversity, as well as coastline protection, often providing first clues about marine ecosystem health because of the immediate response to environmental changes.  Coral reefs are being assaulted by the effects of global warming, pollution, and damage from urban development or tourism pressure. This topic addresses the fundamental question about the correlation between climate change and coral reef health, it includes coral reef resilience and resistance to coral bleaching linked to global warming.  Coral reef, climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as coral reef condition, threats, and conservation in the coral triangle area will be considered.

2. Marine Protected Area Management and Threatened/Charismatic Species: This topic includes the challenges for Marine Protected Area (MPA) management, including studies on essential ecosystem components like coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass and benthic sand communities.   Human interactions with the environment in terms of adaptive management are an important issue within this topic.  The role of MPA’s in enriching the surrounding fishing ground should be discussed under this topic.

3. Economic, Sociological and Environmental Management of Coral Reef Ecosystems: This topic addresses the fundamental questions about the correlation between economics and conservation.  Topics such as integrated coastal management, community based management, sociological impacts of management policies, ecotourism, payment for environmental services(PES) and green economies should be included in this general topic.

4. Integrated Coastal Management/ Sea Partnership/ Policy and Governance: Topics on policy and governance should cover the issues, policy needs, process, implementation and evaluation of an integrated coastal management plan.  When considering beach and sand, march and muddy, coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grass ecosystems with consideration for maintenance of biodiversity and meeting human needs – would a specific management model be provided?  Between governments, industries, community and the universities, how can we accelerate the management and development program that will best serve these issues?

Call for Abstracts:

Abstracts should be in English.

Title should be Bold, Centered, and major words should start with capital letters.

List of authors should be centered, names of multiple authors with common affiliation are separated by commas, with “and” used before the last author.

Paper size: A4 (8.27 x 11.69 inches)

Margin: 1 inch for top and sides

Font type: Times New Roman (12 pt.)

Single spaced paragraph, double spacing between paragraphs, text fully justified.

Maximum number of words is 250

Deadline for submission

The abstract should be submitted no later than August 17, 2011

Submission Procedures

Papers are invited on the themes outlined and others falling within the main theme and scope of the workshop.  Abstracts should clearly state the purpose, results and conclusions of the work described in the paper.  All abstracts will be reviewed by the scientific members of the committee and judgment will be based on the relevance to themes of this workshop.  Poster presentations are welcome.  We strongly encourage online submission of abstracts.

Please email them to: [email protected].

Registration information

• The Symposium is offered to participants free of charge (participants will be selected and the number is limited to 200 only, consisting of 100 speakers and 100 non-speakers).

• Please register online no later than August 17, 2011  www.coral-symposium-cti.com/registration) – or send the form to the address below:

The Organizing Committee

The 2nd Coral reef Management Symposium on Coral Triangle

C/o Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program II (COREMAP II)

Jl. Tebet Raya No. 67C, Phone/Fax: +62-21-83794739

Jakarta Selatan 12820, INDONESIA

Further Information:

The first announcement flyer is now available.  It includes general information and registration forms and is available on the web at: www.coral-symposium-cti.com/registration.php

You may also request further information by email at: [email protected]