Reef Resilience Review November 2008

New Reef Resilience Toolkit Now Available

Spotlight on British Virgin Islands Case Study

To join the network or submit updates, contact:
Stephanie Wear,
Marine Protected Area Specialist
The Nature Conservancy, Global Marine Initiative
resilience@tnc.org

For more information about The Nature Conservancy's Global Marine Initiative, visit: www.nature.org/marine

This newsletter is brought to you through the generous support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

November, 2008
Distributed by the Global Marine Initiative

New Reef Resilience Toolkit Now Available!

The strategies and approaches described in the toolkit provide ways for managers to minimize the impacts of bleaching events and build resilience into the systems they manage.
© Paul Marshall/GBRMPA

We are thrilled to announce that the ALL NEW R2 Toolkit is now live on the web and also available in CD version. The toolkit is divided into two modules: Coral Reefs and Fish Spawning Aggregations. It also includes the Reef Resilience Homepage which with you already may be familiar. The Toolkit is a product developed for coral reef managers providing guidance on integrating and building the concepts of resilience to climate change into the design of MPAs, as well as on daily management activities. Guidance provided ranges from conserving fish spawning aggregations to MPA network design to developing coral reef monitoring programs. The current version seeks to capture the tremendous growth in coral reef resilience science. Mangers have worked to build resilience into their management activities on the ground and in the water. In this toolkit, we incorporate their lessons learned by way of recommendations and case studies. Finally, users of the R2 Toolkit will notice improvements in the structure and navigation of this version. Please check out this new resource and all that it offers! If you would like the new R2 Toolkit in CD format, please contact us at resilience@tnc.org .

Spotlight on British Virgin Islands Case Study

The vibrant reefs of the British Virgin Islands. © Shannon Gore

Excerpt from the BVI Case Study~
The primary goals of the British Virgin Island System of Protected Areas are:

To create a Marine Protected Area (MPA) network that reflects the major marine and coastal habitats of the BVI (i.e., representative)
To protect 30% of the important biological habitats across the BVI (e.g., hard corals, soft corals, seagrasses, mangroves, turtle nesting beaches, fishery habitats)
To cluster protected areas together so that they can be easily managed
To ensure that there are protected areas distributed strategically across the BVI to ensure resilience

These goals reflect and incorporate resilience principles by aiming to represent the biodiversity of their system and replicate areas of protection, creating a system-wide network. In addition, they also address connectivity via a size ‘proxy’ by protecting sufficiently large areas (e.g., 30% of critical habitats). Read more about the BVI Case Study…

Call for Resilience Case Studies

The new toolkit has about 20 different stories from the field in the form of case studies and communication campaign examples. We will continue to follow the work in these places and are excited to add new experiences to this resource. If you have been working to build resilience into your reef management activities and want to share it with others, please contact us! Sharing your lessons learned will help others to identify effective strategies and also avoid approaches that haven’t worked as well.

Looking Ahead

November 10-14, 2008, 61st Gulf Caribbean Fisheries Institute Meeting, Gosier, Guadeloupe, FWI.

April 13-18, 2009, 10th International Coastal Symposium (ICS 2009), Lisbon, Portugal.

May 11-15, 2009, World Ocean's Conference (WOC), Manado, Indonesia

May 20-24, 2009, International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC), Washington, D.C. USA