Upcoming Webinar

TNC's Ridge to Reef Management: Watershed Management for Coral Reef Health

DATE & TIME:
This Webinar will be offered once.
Wednesday January 16th, 9:00am UTC+10

REGISTRATION: Registration for the webinar is free.

• Register for the session 

 

'RIDGE-TO-REEF' is a holistic conservation and management approach that links conservation action across watersheds and adjacent coastal ecosystems. This approach applies science-based management across the land/seascape, from forested ridges downstream to rivers and estuaries and further along to coastal mangroves, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs. Ridge to reef conservation is most successful when communities and government collaborate to develop management interventions that address key threats to wild places and wildlife of both land and sea-for healthy people and ecosystems.

Carissa Klein from the University of Queensland and Stacy Jupiter from the Wildlife Conservation Society Fiji will discuss recent ridge to reef work. This will include a presentation of new systematic approaches to support ridge to reef decisions in Fiji (Klein et al. 2012 Ecological Applications - email Stacy or Carissa for a copy). This presentation will conclude with a Q&A session.

PANELISTS:
Carissa Klein- University of Queensland
Stacy Jupiter- Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji

HOST: Petra MacGowan, Reef Resilience Project Manager, Global Marine Team, The Nature Conservancy

CNMI's Marine Monitoring Team Blog

Though program updates and news have been sporadically posted on the CNMI's Coral Reef Initiative page (http://www.cnmicoralreef.net) Most notfications regarding activities such as reef flat surveys have been primarily distributed via email. In an effort to streamline the announcement process, the MMT has reformatted previous posts and continues to post information at their new blog at http://cnmimmt.blogspot.com/

An Interesting Idea For Earth Day: Blue Marbles

The following was shared by Wallace J. Nichols via the CTURTLE listserve:

"As Earth Day approaches, I wanted to share a simple educational tool with you that I've found to be wonderfully useful and VERY fun.

http://BlueMarbles.org

About 2 years ago at a lecture in the New England Aquarium's IMAX theater I started sharing blue marbles with people whenever I gave public talks, as a way to make our ocean conservation message a little more "sticky" and as a way to encourage further conversation and sharing.

The basic idea is to give someone a blue marble as a token of gratitude for what they are doing for our planet. They pass their blue marble along to someone, and so on.

(I told you it was simple)

The stories and outcomes of this simple act have been quite amazing, including a blue marble riding in the Jamaican team's sled in the Alaskan Iditarod race and a blue marble headed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with filmmaker James Cameron. The kids at the Rooftop School in San Francisco have sent their marbles all over the world in small origami boxes made of old maps. Thirteen year-old Ben shared blue marbles at his Bar Mitzvah, calling it an Ocean Mitzvah, starting a trend among his peers."

Free Coral Reef Watershed Webinar

Teaching Ocean Connections: Watersheds to Reefs, Wednesday March 30 at 7:00pm Eastern - Free Registration http://eeweek.org/webinars/watersheds_reefs as part of the National Environmental Education Week

What is a Species of Special Concern?

You've probably heard of Threatened or Endangered species, but there is another category- Species of Concern that aren't considered close enough to extinction for formal listing, but are in bad shape. In CNMI the Atuhong or Bumphead Parrotfish and Tangison or Humphead Wrasse are locally and federally considered Species of Concern. Although the Tangison is still seen around the islands, the Atuhong is becoming rarer and rarer and is currently being considered for Federal listing as either threatened or endangered. Learn more at the SOC website.

Journal of Micronesian Fishing

The Journal of Micronesian Fishing is a publication covering all aspects of the art of fishing in the region. The fifth issue features articles provided by European Union funded community-based conservation projects from Chuuk, Yap and Pohnpei. An independent article discusses the cultural and traditional uses of sea turtles in the Central Caroline islands. The current (and past) issues can be browsed online or downloaded in pdf format at www.micronesianfishing.com

WPCRI Announces Scholarship at University of Guam

The Western Pacific Coral Reef Institute (WPCRI) is a cooperative agreement between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research and the University of Guam (UOG). We are pleased to announce the availability of scholarships to resident students wishing to study at UOG. As part of our capacity building effort, WPCRI will avail opportunities to combine sociocultural and traditional ecological knowledge with technical and scientific perspectives that will foster a stronger interest in natural resource management among local indigenous and other minority groups within the region. WPCRI anticipates issuing 7 scholarships based on a 16-credit semester to five (5) undergraduate and two (2) graduate students to cover the cost of tuition, fees, and books in the amount of up to $4,228 for undergraduate and $5,376 for graduate programs based on the availability of funds.

DEADLINE TO APPLY FOR SPRING 2011 IS DECEMBER 28, 2010. Please help spread the word.

DOWNLOAD THE APPLICATION at the UOG Financial Aid Website http://www.uog.edu/financialaid
For more information on WPCRI visit our website at http://www.uog.edu/wpcri