[Coral-List] Call for Abstracts: Session 65: Improving the understanding and management of coral reef social-ecological systems through community and stakeholder engagement

[Jeremy Jackson]

We invite you to please submit abstracts to ICRS Session 65: Improving the
understanding and management of coral reef social-ecological systems
through community and stakeholder engagement



Session description:


Monitoring and reporting are seen as core elements of ecosystem-based
management. New approaches for regional coral reef reporting, piloted by
the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), aim to broaden
participation in assessments, create comprehensive data inventories for
better tracking of environmental change, and generate actionable
recommendations
on management and policy responses as well as strengthening monitoring and
reporting. Aimed on the one side at raising the standards of ecological
assessment of reefs worldwide, this session will also focus on best
practices for working alongside resource users, and synthesizing and
integrating their knowledge into the various stages of assessment and
management. Decision makers, community members and resource users more
likely see research results as legitimate and effective if they engage in
an iterative process with scientists to co-design the research and
co-create knowledge with them. Full consideration of these different data
sources requires inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that can be
applied across a range of management scales.



This session aims to develop ways to:

-       Improve and standardize ecological monitoring of coral reefs
worldwide,

-       Highlight inter- and transdisciplinary methodologies and analyses
of reef-based social-ecological systems,

-       Use insights from science/ecology and local knowledge to improve
participatory practices,

-       Improve local, national and regional reef management and
conservation.

In this way, a ‘chain of information’ will be developed, elucidating the
different approaches and perspectives needed along the way to result in a
positive outcome with regional and global policy relevance and application.



Particular attention will be paid to the processes and techniques that
enable the transfer of relevant information to management and policy, such
as assessment of the reliability of resource user knowledge, and the
generation of ecological and social indicators for management. We envision
and welcome participation from both social and natural science disciplines,
as well as managers, practitioners and policy makers. A final panel
discussion will provide input for a summarizing, policy-relevant
publication.



The deadline for submission is 15 January 2016.


We hope you will be able to join us!


Jeremy Jackson, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Smithsonian
Institution: jeremybcjackson at gmail.com


Other organizers: Jerker Tamelander, Annette Breckwoldt, Shankar Aswani,
Haruko Koike, Alan Friedlander, Kirsten Oleson, Sebastian Ferse, Adam Ayers,
Ruth H. Thurstan, Sarah M. Buckley, Renae Tobin, and John N. (Jack)
Kittinger. Their emails are on the ICRS website.