Presenter - International Coral Reef Symposium
Title
Presenter - International Coral Reef Symposium
Other - Specify
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SPEAKER
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Activity Type
Contribution to conference, workshop, seminar or course
Date
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Description
Diverse seagrass communities are an important component of the coral reef landscape, often growing on reef-tops or adjacent to reef areas. Seagrasses provide important ecosystem roles that benefit coral reefs (e.g. sediment stabilisation, filter for water quality), the fish that live on reefs (e.g. nursery habitat), and sustain megafauna such as turtle and dugong that rely on seagrass as a food source. Seagrass meadows are predominantly located in shallow inshore areas so, like corals, are threatened with a range of anthropogenic pressures such as coastal development, poor water quality, port expansion and dredging. Policy makers and managers worldwide are grappling with the need to effectively manage these pressures within a framework complicated by multi-jurisdictional arrangements, and competing financial and stakeholder interests. Climate change and sea level rise projections add to the complexity of this management challenge. We invite abstracts that present innovative solutions to understand and assess tropical seagrass communities, novel tools to communicate seagrass science, and examples of effective partnerships that engage a variety of stakeholders and the public. We will judge the session a success if our collective knowledge and discussions lead to improved strategies and guiding efforts to bridge the science and policy gap.