[Coral-List] Open call for action on equity and inclusiveness to ICRS22

elisa.bayraktarov at gmx.de elisa.bayraktarov at gmx.de
Sat Feb 12 12:54:23 UTC 2022


Dear Coral-List friends and colleagues,

I’d like to share with you an open call for action on equity and inclusiveness to the ICRS 2022 Organisers.

Resource: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pl1b0owsm4qzn7a/Open%20letter%20to%20ICRS%202022%20Organisers_EB_PM-M.pdf?dl=0

The short summary can be found in my tweet:

https://twitter.com/ElisaBayra/status/1492394908551761922?s=20&t=bOp6pp4lMYCq4HwcxkPYzg

I am a chair in the symposium 13D ‘Effectiveness of coral reef restoration – what have we learnt from the Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific?’. This symposium aimed to share learnings from long-term and ongoing coral reef restoration projects done by scientists and practitioners in the Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific, which have been poorly shared with the international scientific community. Uniquely, this was the first time in its 50-year history that the ICRS would have a session focused on overcoming language barriers and sharing coral reef research findings of restoration practitioners from the Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific with the international community. As chairs of this symposium, we recommended the acceptance of 17 oral presentations and 2 posters, 16 of which were submitted from lower-middle-income countries such as Puerto Rico, Mexico, Bonaire, Curacao, and Colombia to the ICRS 2020.

ICRS 2020 was postponed to ICRS 2021 due to COVID-19 and was entirely online, however, none of the accepted delegates could afford the 350 Euro online participation fee, so our symposium changed completely. I still self-funded and chaired the symposium in 2021, although it was nothing like what I had intended previously. We still had a number of really good contributions but they just didn’t quite match the symposium description.

This year, the ICRS 2022 will be a hybrid event hosted in Germany and the online participation fee jumped from 350 to 395 Euro (the in person fee is 830 Euro). I should note that 395 Euro represent 70-80% of the average monthly income in the countries where the original delegates in my symposium were from. The ICRS have resubmitted all symposia, presentations and posters that were accepted in the virtual ICRS 2021. But I doubt, anyone from a poor country would be ever able to afford those costs.

I feel, we need a cultural change for more inclusion of diversity and equity. There is even an SDG 10 which urges us to “Reduce inequality within and among countries”.  This is why I am prepared to step down as chair if ICRS doesn’t waive online participation fees for delegates from lower-middle income countries. I am not sure, my call will lead to a change this year but at least it will stimulate some discourse for a potential change in the future. Here’s to hope!

I am really sorry, if my decision to step down as a chair of this symposium affects you in case you were hoping to present. I just can’t align this with my values.

Thanks for reading so far,

Elisa


Dr Elisa Bayraktarov (she/her/hers)
EcoCommons Program Manager

M: +61 401 676 881<tel:+61401676881>
E: e.bayraktarov at griffith.edu.au<mailto:e.bayraktarov at griffith.edu.au>

W: https://www.ecocommons.org.au/

@ElisaBayra












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