by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Dec 12, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired Thursday, December 12, 2024. Presented by: Ioannis Pappas and Tiffany Chan of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. Description: The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) establishes and manages global standards for sustainable travel and tourism, known as the GSTC Criteria. The GSTC’s Destination Criteria for public policymakers and destination managers provide basic guidelines for destinations that wish to become more sustainable and offer governments, NGOs, and the private sector a starting point for developing sustainable tourism requirements. This webinar will present the GSTC’s resources for assessing the sustainability of coastal tourism and takeaways from destination assessments in coastal areas, including Heraklion, Corfu, Athens, Dubrovnik, and Kotor.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Dec 10, 2024 | Upcoming Webinars, Webinars
Wednesday, May 14, 1 pm US EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm UTC. Presented by: Claire Colegrove and Alex Driedger of ProtectedSeas. Description: While hundreds of nations have committed to the global 30×30 target, much work remains to reach that goal and sustainably manage the remaining 70%. Regulatory protections are crucial for marine management efficacy, and accurate data on in-place management measures are essential for assessing existing marine protections and informing the creation of new areas. However, collecting and interpreting marine regulations can be challenging due to often unavailable or difficult-to-access legal instruments. Overlapping measures and siloed management add further complexities. ProtectedSeas Navigator contains data on worldwide regulations for MPAs, fishery management areas, and other place-based marine managed areas (MMAs) and considers restrictions cumulatively across overlapping areas using spatial aggregation techniques to provide insights into overall protection. This cumulative analysis of regulations in overlapping marine managed areas offers insights into overall uses and protection across ocean spaces, enabling better protection assessments, planning, and management. As an example, initial analysis in California revealed several ocean spaces where individual MMA protections were minimal, yet when combined with protections from other overlapping MMAs, resulted in more highly regulated spaces with enhanced protection.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Nov 5, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Presented by: Shaila Huq, Eric Teller, Kris Moreau, and Jona Raphael from SkyTruth. Description: Ocean oil pollution can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and the coastal communities that depend on them. Cerulean, developed by SkyTruth, is a new system to monitor the global ocean for oil pollution by detecting oil slicks in satellite imagery and identifying nearby vessels and offshore oil and gas infrastructure that could be the source of those slicks. Cerulean can support climate and marine conservation organizations, journalists, enforcement agencies, and individuals or agencies that want to protect their waters from oil pollution. Users can find potential slicks on a simple, map-based interface and generate reports showing likely sources of observed pollution, or use Cerulean’s API to integrate pollution data into their own maritime observation platforms. In addition to this incident-focused work, Cerulean is also starting to provide a broader picture of chronic oil pollution globally – the initial six-month pilot suggested that ships may be dumping more than 1.8 million barrels of oil per year into the ocean. This webinar will present Cerulean, how to use it, and early results on global hotspots for vessel and infrastructure oil slicks.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Nov 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
Wednesday, November 13, 7 am US EST/Noon UTC/1 pm CET [***Webinar will last 1.5 hours***] Presenters: IUCN plastics experts and guest speakers from islands addressing plastic waste. Description: This webinar will focus on island-specific plastic pollution solutions, including tools for understanding plastic waste solutions, economic angles of plastic pollution, case studies, and solutions platforms to generate knowledge exchange for more effective mitigation and prevention of plastic waste and pollution. Just a few of the tools and resources to be covered include the Blueprint to Zero Plastic Waste – a guide to reducing plastic waste on islands – and findings of studies estimating the impacts of marine plastics on the fisheries and tourism sectors and the costs and benefits of implementing a solution (e.g., a national recycling system, with and without regional cooperation) to reduce mismanaged plastic waste and its leakage into the marine environment. Case studies will provide information on what has worked and not worked on islands, including the sustainability of projects.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Nov 5, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Monday, November 4, 2024. Presented by: Milica Stankovic of Prince of Songkla University. Description: Southeast Asia’s seagrass ecosystems are highly diverse and productive and are potential global hotspots for carbon sequestration and storage. This webinar will summarize recent research and remaining knowledge gaps on the distribution, extent, species diversity, and carbon storage potential of seagrasses in Southeast Asia. It will also cover recent work on seagrass restoration in Thailand – including successes at increasing seagrass meadow areas and seagrass coverage over the past decades and more recent worrying declines in seagrass coverage and health.
