Building Socio-Ecological Resilience to Coral Reef Degradation in the Islands of the Western Indian Ocean

5亿人直接利用珊瑚礁提供基本的生态系统服务，如食物和海岸保护，其中许多人生活在最贫穷发展中国家的农村地区。这种依赖在西印度洋(WIO)地区尤为明显。珊瑚礁一直在经历严重和持续的生态退化，气候变化加剧了这种退化。这些生态系统由此产生的变化对沿海社区可能是毁灭性的。这个项目是与来自世界经济组织和英国的利益相关者共同开发的，涉及一个团队，他们拥有自然科学(珊瑚礁和生态系统服务)、社会科学(包括治理和发展研究)、环境经济学、心理学、地理学、神学、艺术(结合美术和设计)和健康的跨学科专业知识。该项目在范围上雄心勃勃，预计将产生新颖和创新的成果。该项目旨在创建一个由来自英国、毛里求斯、桑给巴尔和其他WIO岛屿的当地社区、政府、非政府组织和学术界利益攸关方组成的专家网络，以寻找机会，利用与环境有关的研究来确定和完善建立对珊瑚礁长期变化的社会生态复原力的战略和优先事项。该项目将涉及四项相互关联的活动，这些活动将利用项目组、分包商和项目伙伴的不同专门知识和学科背景：(1)将绘制和评估目前用于管理珊瑚礁的战略，这些战略通常被认为是建立对气候变化影响的复原力。(2)在毛里求斯举办的讲习班将有来自毛里求斯(包括罗德里格斯)、桑给巴尔、马达加斯加、科摩罗、塞舌尔和肯尼亚的利益攸关方参加。这将包括评估i)对社区管理和机构的作用的看法，以及克服障碍所需采取的行动；ii)激励行动的机会；iii)建立复原力的沟通战略。讲习班将包括互动会议，以深入分析风险(包括公共框架和专家框架之间的差异)，并采用视觉艺术方法绘制参与性地图，以创造体验式学习，并在现实世界生态风险的背景下引出感知、价值观和特性的更微妙和无形的方面。利用参与者的经验和专业知识，将共同制定这些活动的议定书(包括一部电影)，以便在其他地方复制和编写一份综合报告。(3)将在毛里求斯和桑给巴尔试行该议定书，以探讨不同社区具体复原力战略和社区内不同群体相关的社会文化风险，以验证综合报告的有效性，并促进对与珊瑚礁相关的风险和价值观的进一步思考和对话。(4)英国研讨会将汇集来自毛里求斯、马达加斯加、桑给巴尔和英国的合作伙伴，以综合项目成果，重点是找出可以利用教育系统框架解决的差距和未来英国-世界知识产权组织合作的潜力，并从多学科工作、与利益攸关方的接触以及从这一过程中吸取的经验教训方面反思项目活动。将制定期刊文章的结构以及初稿文本和最后提交的时间表，以确保这项工作留下学术遗产。研讨会还将为非英国合作伙伴提供一个展示他们的工作和接触更广泛的潜在英国合作者网络的平台。

Half a billion people directly utilise coral reefs for essential ecosystem services (ES) such as food and coastal protection, many of whom live within rural areas of the poorest developing countries. This dependence is especially pronounced across the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Coral reefs have been experiencing major and sustained ecological degradation, exacerbated by climate change. The resultant changes to these ecosystems are potentially devastating to coastal communities.This project was co-developed with stakeholders from around the WIO and the UK, and involves a team with interdisciplinary expertise in natural science (coral reefs and ecosystem services), social science including governance and development studies, environmental economics, psychology, geography, theology, arts (a blend of fine art and design), and health. The project is ambitious in scope and is anticipated to generate novel and innovative outputs.The project aims to create a network of experts from local community, government, NGO and academic stakeholders from the UK, Mauritius, Zanzibar and other WIO islands to scope opportunities for using ES related research to define and refine strategies and priorities for building socio-ecological resilience to long-term change in coral reefs. The project will involve four interlinked activities that will draw on the diversity of expertise and disciplinary backgrounds of the project team, subcontractors and project partners:(1) Strategies that are currently used to manage coral reefs and which are often assumed to build resilience to climate change impacts will be mapped and assessed. The extent to which the ES framework is applied will be identified and assessment made of how it could be more effectively used in future to support the design of such strategies.(2) A workshop in Mauritius will involve stakeholders from Mauritius (including Rodrigues), Zanzibar, Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles and Kenya. This will include assessment of i) perceptions of the role of community management and institutions, and actions needed to overcome barriers; ii) opportunities to incentivise action; iii) communication strategies for building resilience. The workshop will include interactive sessions to provide an in-depth analysis of risk (including differences between public and expert framings) and a visual arts approach to participatory mapping to create experiential learning and elicit the more nuanced and intangible aspects of perception, values and identities in the context of real world ecological risk. Drawing participant experience and expertise, a protocol of these activities (involving a film) for replication elsewhere and a synthesis report will be co-developed.(3) The protocol will be piloted in Mauritius and Zanzibar to explore the socio-cultural risks associated with different community-specific resilience strategies and different groups within the community, in order to validate the synthesis report and promote further reflection and dialogue on risks and values associated with coral reefs. It is anticipated that the culturally sensitive approach will allow a better means of investigating localised knowledge, more diverse identities and the dynamics of subject formation.(4) A UK workshop will bring together partners from Mauritius, Madagascar, Zanzibar and the UK to synthesise project outputs, focusing on identifying gaps that can be addressed using the ES framework and the potential for future UK-WIO collaborations, as well as reflecting on the project activities in terms of multi-disciplinary working, engagement with stakeholders and the lessons learnt from this process. The structure for a journal article together with initial draft text and a timetable for final submission will be developed to ensure an academic legacy from the work. The workshop will also provide a platform for the non-UK partners to present their work and access a wider network of potential UK collaborators.