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Coral Reef Initiatives
A school of yellow goat fish swimming among coral.
ObjectivesCoral reefs are in serious decline globally, especially those near shallow shelves and dense populations. It has been estimated that 10 percent of the Earth's coral reefs have already been seriously degraded and a much greater percentage is threatened. If allowed to continue, this decline is likely to lead to the loss of most of the world's reef resources during the next century. The International Coral Reef Initiative and the U.S. Coral Reef Initiative were launched in recent years with the following broad objectives:
International Coral Reef InitiativeIn 1992 the international community came together in the Earth Summit . The final document of this summit identified coral reefs as ecosystems of great biodiversity and production that should be accorded high priority for protection. It further called for an integrated management approach for their protection and sustainable use. Concerned over the rapidly declining health of the worlds corals and related ecosystems, the United States joined with many other nations to form the International Coral Reef Initiative in 1994. The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) is a partnership among nations and organizations seeking to implement international conventions and agreements for the benefit of coral reefs and related ecosystems. Founded by eight governments -- Australia, France, Japan, Jamaica, the Philippines, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America -- the ICRI was announced at the First Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in December 1994. Since then, the ICRI has come to encompass the participation of additional partners from governments, United Nations organizations, multilateral development banks, environmental and developmental non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. In the United States, ICRI is implemented by several federal resource management agencies with overall guidance provided by the Department of State. EPA is a supporting member of the International Coral Reef Initiative. An early decision of the original ICRI partners was to sponsor an international workshop focused on coral reefs. In anticipation of the workshop, the partners worked to produce a "Call for Action." The purpose was to provide broad principles which could be used to unify the participants in a partnership and to set the direction for the workshop. The international ICRI workshop was held at Dumaguete City, the Philippines from May 29 through June 2, 1995. Participants in the workshop provided additional insights leading to consensus approval of the Call to Action at the workshop. The intent of the workshop was to enable governments, donors and funding agencies, development organizations, NGOs, the research community and the private sector, to work together in order to develop a "Framework for Action," which responds to the Call to Action. The Framework for Action responds to the global problem identified in the Call to Action and was developed with the following purpose: "to mobilize governments and the wide range of other stakeholders whose coordinated, vigorous and effective actions are required to implement the Call to Action." The Call to Action and the Framework for Action are designed to be used in several ways.
In 1995, ICRI called on many nations to commit themselves to increasing research and monitoring of reefs to provide the data for effective management. Several international organizations have joined forces to co-sponsor the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) , which is hosted jointly by the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management. These bodies, along with the ICRI Secretariat, form the GCRMN Management Group, with advice provided by a widely representative Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (GCRMN-STAC). GCRMN functions through fifteen independent networks, or sub-nodes, in six regions around the world. These networks contain many different groups of people, all collaborating to monitor coral reefs and share data. GCRMN emphasises the involvement of local communities. Wherever possible, the GCRMN uses existing organisations and networks, integrates existing monitoring programmes, and maintains flexibility to incorporate different methods of monitoring, other than the standard methodology. GCRMN aims to improve management and sustainable conservation of coral reefs for people by assessing the status and trends in the reefs and how people use and value the resources. It does this by providing many people with the capacity to assess their own resources, within a global network, and to spread the word on reef status and trends. To date, ICRI has:
NOAA's Coral Health and Monitoring Program has prepared a thorough chronology of ICRI activities and publications. U.S. Coral Reef InitiativeThe United States is one of the first countries with coral reefs to launch a national Coral Reef Initiative. Announced in 1996, the U.S. Coral Reef Initiative (USCRI) is designed to be a platform of U.S. support for domestic and international coral conservation efforts. The goal is to strengthen and fill the gaps in existing efforts to conserve and sustainably manage coral reefs and related ecosystems (sea grass beds and mangrove forests) in U.S. waters. The U.S. has significant coral reef resources in the southern Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and western Pacific, including:
U.S. coral reefs are important for many reasons including their economic contributions. For example:
USCRI is a partnership of federal, state, territorial and commonwealth governments, the scientific community, the private sector and other organizations. The primary objective of USCRI is to foster innovative partnerships and cross-disciplinary approaches that reduce the threats to U.S. coral ecosystems. Note: Information on the U.S. Coral Reef Initiative was excerpted from the 1997 Publication NOAA Coral Reef Initiative (PDF) (12 pp, 339K, About PDF). For additional information contact:
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