The international coral reef marine protected area network meeting - 4th ICRI East Asia regional workshop

East Asian region (North-East and South-East Asia) encompasses wide range of rich and diverse marine and coastal ecosystems including the "Coral Triangle", the global center of marine biodiversity. Coral Reefs and related ecosystems are sustaining vast majority of livelihood and economic health of these coastal nations. Yet many of the reefs are at high risk and need urgent actions to be taken to improve conservation and management.

Marine Protected Area (MPA) is recognized as one of the most effective tools to conserve such marine and coastal ecosystems. In this context, the international community has committed to develop representative networks of MPAs by 2012 at WSSD and CBD COP7.
ICRI has a role to facilitate the global efforts in conserving coral reefs and related ecosystems and reversing their degradation, and have encouraged its members to take urgent actions in the Recommendation on Developing MPA Networks adopted at the General Meeting in Tokyo, April 2007. The current joint Mexico-US ICRI Secretariat also prioritizes enhancing MPAs and revitalizing the regional approach including through thematic ICRI Regional Workshops in its Secretariat's Plan of Action.

Up to now, ICRI East Asia Regional Workshops has been held three times and developed regional policy documents, such as East Asia Seas Regional Strategy (1996, Bali), Okinawa Declaration (1997, Okinawa), and East Asia Policy Agenda on Marine Protected Areas as a Strategy for Coral Reef Conservation and Management (2001, Cebu). However, implementation of these policies has not been followed-up afterwards.

To facilitate conservation of coral reefs and related ecosystems through developing of MPA networks in East Asia, Japan has proposed to organize the "International Coral Reef Marine Protected Area Network Meeting/4th ICRI East Asia Regional Workshop" in 2008 and follow-up meetings in 2009 and 2010. The overall objectives are to: (1) take stock information of MPA implementation, identifying gaps and challenges, and (2) to develop a regional strategy as a basis for regional cooperation and to support national efforts. The workshop in 2008 will be placed as a launch of development process of the regional strategy on MPA networks on coral reefs and related ecosystems in East Asia which is targeted until 2010.
These concepts have been accepted in the ICRI General Meeting in Washington DC, January 2008 and Ad Hoc Committee on ICRI East Asia Regional Workshop was established to discuss and plan for the workshop in 2008. Upon further discussion in the ICRI General Meeting in Florida, July 2008, the Ad Hoc Committee was renewed with new terms of reference to further plan the workshop.

Objectives:

- To bring together policy makers, MPA managers, experts and practitioners in East Asia and other regions to increase understanding of status and challenges of MPAs/MPA networks and discuss on how East Asian countries can enhance developing MPA networks on coral reefs and related ecosystems toward 2012 global target including through global perspectives.
- To plan the way forward until 2010 as a preparatory meeting including development of regional strategy and provisional TOR of possible meetings and activities in 2009 and 2010.