DID YOU KNOW? The DOE will launch an innovative solution to conservation, enforcement and education in the Cayman Islands this year, the DOEs first ever smart phone app! Together with three other project objectives, the creation of a public DOE app and an in-house enforcement app is part of a new DOE project aimed at improving conservation and management of Caymans marine resources. The Darwin Initiative project from 2010-2013 set out to comprehensively review the existing Marine Parks and design an enhanced system as necessary to allow the Cayman Islands Government to ensure that the Parks remain appropriately configured to provide adequate protection to Cayman’s marine habitats and resources for current and future generations. These proposals have been out for a comprehensive round of public consultation and are currently under consideration by the new Cabinet. Following on from the first project, additional Darwin ‘Post-project’ funding has been acquired to address four key issues that have been identified as having the potential to undermine the success of the enhanced or existing Marine Parks network: (1) The invasive lionfish, (2) the use and management of Cayman’s multi-species spawning aggregation areas (SPAGs), (3) the extent of fish overspill from Marine Parks into concessionary fishing areas, and finally (4) limited enforcement capacity. This Post-project is underway with innovative research being done on the lionfish, some exciting assessments being done on the country’s SPAGs, work proposed for socio-economic fisher surveys this summer, and the DOE’s first suite of smart phone and tablet applications to be launched this year as novel solutions to improve enforcement capacity and efficiency whilst engaging and empowering the public! Stay tuned for more information on each of these four project initiatives! Project partners include: REEF Reef Environmental Education Foundation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, School of Ocean Sciences, The Nature Conservancy in Florida with generous financial contributions also from the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation. (NB. Temporary app name and illustration here).
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 22:01:14 +0000
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