MET Organises International MPA Conference
MET and Shoals Rodrigues brought 73 delegates from 12 countries to Rodrigues for a regional conference: the first of its kind the island had seen on this scale. Coastal management practitioners from as far afield as the UK, France, India and Senegal joined their counterparts from East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean islands to discuss the issues of unsustainable marine resource use and how Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can be used as effective management tools.
‘The Progress of Marine Protected Areas in the Western Indian Ocean: Success & Disappointments’ was held at Escale Vacances Hotel, Rodrigues Island, Mauritius on 9–13 May 2007. It brought together Government agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations working directly in the development and management of MPAs in order to: share information on successes, lessons learned and research findings; gather feedback on MPA management tools that have been developed and circulated in the region; and strengthen the network of western Indian Ocean MPA professionals.
During the first three days, individual workshop sessions focused on topics including education, financing, research, and impediments and solutions to effective management. Throughout all of these, the underlying theme was community participation, as delegates understood the need to stress the fundamental importance of involving coastal villagers throughout the process of establishing MPAs, from the ideas stage to set up, monitoring, management and enforcement.
Delegates were also given a day to snorkel in the newly designated MPA at Riviere Banane and to visit the sights of Rodrigues, before the conference closed with the first meeting of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Ecoregion (WIOMER) MPA Managers' Forum. This Forum is part of a project managed by the Indian Ocean Commission and WWF to bring regional coherence to MPA development through the creation of an MPA network serving Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar and Reunion.
To download a copy of the workshop proceedings, please click here.
The conference was made possible thanks to financial support from Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial, the European Union’s Regional Programme for Coastal Zone Management of the West Indian Ocean Countries (ReCoMaP), WWF, the UK’s Darwin Initiative programme, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association.
