[Coral-List] Fwd: ICRS global vs regional

[Vassil Zlatarski]

Hi all,

A big thanks to Coral-List for the opportunity to discuss the international
meetings dedicated to coral reefs.  The dialogue started as environmental
and cost-effective issue.  Today, the pandemic is impeding the realization
of 14th ICRS in July.  It is difficult to imagine the pressure and all
difficulties the Organizers of Bremen Symposium and the Lieders of ISCR are
facing.  In this forum, respected world experts shared their preoccupations
and opinions, which were deeply appreciated.   This took me back to 1970s
when David Stoddart struggled for creation of International Society for
Reef Studies by establishing a Coral Reef Committee in IABO (International
Association for Biological Oceanography).  David was tenacious dreamer and
in the same time a successful pragmatic.  Interesting, what would be his
advice in present situation?

With years, the name of the Society was changed according to its enhanced
mission. Now, not only dozens of people are dedicated to coral reefs.  The
international meetings are attended by more than two thousand persons.  In
addition, the decimation of reef ecosystem is part of the global
environmental crisis.  On positive side, time brought the accessible online
connection.  Can we use it by improving the arrangements of past
international and regional meetings, and by focusing on interdisciplinary
polemics and solution-asking agenda?  The digital logistics terrified our
generation, nevertheless, I would expect David’s loudly articulated
approval.

Cheers,

Vassil

Vassil Zlatarski, D.Sc. (Biology), Ph.D. (Geology)


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter Sale via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Date: Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 3:35 PM
Subject: [Coral-List] ICRS global vs regional
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>,
dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>


Hi all,
As usual, Denny Hubbard speaks considerable sense.  There is one thing he
left out when talking about the diversity of topics and ideas at a global
ICRS.  While we are a global community, we exist as two large
sub-communities based in the Caribbean and in Australia, and a series of
smaller groups based in France/French Polynesia, south-east Asia, Japan,
Hawaii, Red Sea, and Europe (and apologies to all of you vibrant
researchers who don't find yourselves in any of those).  Some of these
groups can be very insular for reasons to do with language, travel
opportunities, size of the group.  The two largest sub-communities have for
as long as I can remember shown a tendency to act as if research in their
region was the only research that really mattered.  (If you doubt this,
look at the references listed in typical articles from these two places).
And, no, I have not done the Google search to back up that claim.  A global
meeting that moves from place to place around the world over the y
 ears has been one of the things that prevented that tendency from becoming
an international embarrassment.

The world is changing, and the extent to which we will be able to travel to
global meetings may well become less.  We will need a replacement mechanism
to sustain cross-pollination of ideas if we lose global meetings.  Regional
meetings, with local participation are unlikely to do that.

Peter Sale
University of Windsor
sale at uwindsor.ca

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