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A report on the proper management of mangroves for resilience to climate change

Most countries in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) have one or more marine protected areas (MPAs) dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, natural resources and cultural heritage values. Of these, two (Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park and Aldabra Atoll) are listed as World Heritage sites under the World Heritage Convention, and another three (Malindi-Watamu and Kiunga-Dodori in Kenya, and Mananara-Nord in Madagascar) are listed as Biosphere Reserves under the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme in recognition of their global value. Experience has shown that it is not simply enough to declare or legally gazette an area as an MPA, although this is a vitally important step. The long term success of an MPA depends on effective management combined with demonstration of its usefulness and appropriateness as a conservation and management tool within its local and national context.

A workshop on the assessment of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus). with the Solomon Islands as a case study, took place from 21-23 August 2008 in Apia. Samoa. It was planned and organized under the auspices of the Cetacean Specialist Group and attended by 19 invited participants from eight countries. Financial support was provided by WWF (International). The Ocean Conservancy. Animal Welfare Institute. Humane Society of the United States. Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. U.S. Marine Mammal Commission and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The workshop was hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

Coral reefs are vital ecosystems, providing a source of income, food arid coastal protection for millions of people; arid recent studies have shown that coral reef goods and services provide an annual net benefit of US$30 billion to economies worldwide (Cesar et al, 2003). Coral reefs are composed mainly of reef-building corals: colonial animals (polyps) that live symbiotically with the single-celled microalgae (zooxanthellae) in their body tissue and secrete a calcium carbonate skeleton. Coral reefs are formed by hundreds of thousands of these polyps and are found in warm, shallow, clear, low-nutrient tropical and sub-tropical waters, with optimum temperatures of 25-29eC, although they exist in ranges from 18eC (Florida) to 33eC (Persian Gulf) (Buddemeier and Wilkinson, 1994). They are incredibly diverse, covering only 0.2% of the ocean's floor but containing 25% of its species and they are often dubbed the 'tropical rainforests of the oceans' (Roberts, 2003).