by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Mar 1, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 29, 2024. Recording audio is in both English and Spanish. Presented by: SMMM Team of the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO). Description: Mangroves provide valuable ecosystem services worth billions of dollars. Countries with extensive mangrove areas have implemented management programs and conservation since the 1980s. However, the global area of mangroves continues to decline, and restoration projects and rehabilitation are having limited success, especially at the spatial scales necessary to restore functional properties. The effective long-term monitoring of mangroves is essential to identifying existing and potential threats to and improving the success of restoration and rehabilitation programs. This webinar will present the origin, development, implementation and main results of the Mexican Mangrove Monitoring System (SMMM). The SMMM identifies changes in the mangrove ecosystem through the periodic evaluation of its spatial distribution and the state of its natural and social attributes. The information generated supports the protection, conservation, and management programs of Mexican mangroves.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Feb 22, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 22, 2024. Presented by: Jean-Jacques Goussard and Lilian Wetzel of the MPA Resilience Partnership, Mike De Luca of the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve, Mathieu Ducrocq of the Regional Network of Marine Protected Areas in West Africa (RAMPAO), and Jacqueline Gautier-DeBernardi of the Monaco Association for Nature Conservation. Description: As coastal populations become more concentrated, many of today’s coastal MPAs will become urban or peri-urban in the next few decades. This urbanization will occur against a backdrop of accelerating climate-related changes. While the concept of sustainable coastal cities is emerging, MPAs in urban contexts and their unique resilience challenges have remained largely on the sidelines of the marine and coastal conservation movement. Given the massive and diverse pressures that urban MPAs face, they are ideal pilot laboratories for marine and coastal resilience building and conservation. The MPA Resilience Partnership is therefore launching a global initiative to network urban MPAs. This webinar will present this innovative initiative and its diverse objectives for the first time and will gather webinar participants’ insights and contributions for this initiative. This initiative has arisen from insights gained from use of R-SAT (the MPA Resilience Self-Assessment Tool) which is currently used by more than a hundred MPAs worldwide.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Feb 13, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, February 15, 2024. Presented by: Sara Hutto of the Greater Farallones Association and Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries and Doug George of NOAA. Description: The sediments of the vast ocean floor represent the world’s largest non-fossil pool of organic carbon, yet they are not well-studied or protected. The carbon in these sediments can remain stored for thousands to millions of years; however, activities such as mining, oil and gas exploration, and bottom-contact fishing can disturb sediment, resuspending it into the water column and potentially remineralizing carbon into aqueous CO2. Current understanding of marine sediment carbon along the US West Coast is limited, constraining meaningful management and protection of these critically important carbon sinks. The Greater Farallones Association, in partnership with NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) and NOAA’s Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries, conducted the first systematic evaluation of marine sedimentary carbon stocks in North-central California. This webinar will discuss the importance of marine sediments in global carbon sequestration and storage. It will also present the results of this study, including an estimate of the carbon stock within the Sanctuaries’ marine sediments and identification of carbon “hot-spots” on the seafloor based on a novel spatial model of carbon density.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jan 25, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Tuesday, February 13, 2024 (Australian EDT). Presented by: Peter Macreadie of the Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University, Australia. Description: Blue carbon ecosystems (BCE), including mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and tidal marshes, store carbon and provide co-benefits such as coastal protection and fisheries enhancement. Blue carbon sequestration has therefore been suggested as a natural climate solution. In this webinar, the Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University will examine the potential for BCEs to act as carbon sinks, as well as the opportunities and challenges to protect or restore ecosystems for this function. Touching on local case studies and projects, the webinar will showcase how improving policy and financial approaches, engaging communities, and boosting our science can help operationalize blue carbon to achieve measurable changes to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, provide multiple co-benefits, and address national obligations associated with international agreements.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jan 18, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired Thursday, January 18,2024. Presented by: Nicola Johnstone of New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Fisheries Marine Strategy Implementation. Description: Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been used for decades to conserve biological diversity and ecological systems, underpinned by knowledge gained from natural science disciplines. However, little consideration has been given to understanding the human element. Oral histories as a research methodology can help address this. They can contribute significant new knowledge and insights to the planning and management of an MPA, and through the research process, build relationships with community, improve trust, and bridge the people-environment-management divide. This was demonstrated in the Solitary Islands Marine Park (SIMP) in northern New South Wales, Australia. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with seventy people from varied backgrounds who have a relationship with the SIMP. Three key themes were explored: the process to declare the SIMP, how and why people connect to the SIMP, and changes in the SIMP observed over time. This webinar will illustrate the substantial benefits of using oral history for MPA planning and management and will provide tips and best practices for using oral histories as a research methodology.
by Sarah Carr, Ph.D. | Jan 18, 2024 | Past Webinars, Webinars
This webinar originally aired on Thursday, January 18, 2024. Presented by: Chloe King of the University of Cambridge. Description: Blue carbon ecosystems, such as seagrass, capture and store high quantities of carbon dioxide and provide a range of other benefits to coastal communities by supporting fisheries, sheltering coastlines, and filtering water. Yet these ecosystems continue to be underfunded and insufficiently represented in marine management policy. Recent research explored the challenges and opportunities for valuing, financing, and managing seagrass ecosystem services through a systematic map of 56 studies and surveys and interviews with 84 conservation professionals. Results show that in both literature and in practice, monetary and biophysical ecosystem service value indicators are more prevalent than socio-cultural indicators; instrumental values prevail over intrinsic and relational values; and academic and anthropocentric knowledge systems and worldviews prevail over Indigenous, local, or ecocentric perspectives. The lack of diverse valuation approaches has led to an over-emphasis on carbon sequestration benefits, despite the infeasibility of carbon financing for small-scale seagrass projects. If seagrass conservation efforts are to succeed at scale, then a range of innovative valuation approaches will be necessary to address equity and justice concerns in enabling community-led initiatives.
