Making marine science matters – Public Outreach

The NCEAS Group at Lotus Land, Santa Barbara

Posted by: R. Jumin

I was lucky to be able to participate in the recent Society for Conservation Biology’s 2^nd International Marine Conservation Congress in Victoria, Canada. I was invited to present a paper at a symposium entitled Science and Policy in the Coral Triangle where I presented a paper on the use of local knowledge in conservation planning in the proposed Tun Mustapha Park (TMP). The on-going zoning process in the proposed TMP under the zoning group (See post on establishment of ISC in TMP) will benefit from the information provided by the local communities of TMP compiled through a rapid community survey in 2006 to 2007.

The Coral Triangle Symposium at the 2^nd IMCC was organized by Carissa Klein as part of the the Hugh Possingham/Carrissa Klein’s NCEAS working group that work on supporting decision making in the Coral Triangle. A special newsletter edition on Coral Triangle prepared as part of the symposium can be downloaded at http://ceed.edu.au/dpoint-news/. It highlights various conservation works being carried out on the ground within the region.

Did I mention lucky? Yes, I was lucky as the invitation also came with an invitation to be part of the NCEAS working group meeting held at the NCEAS office in Santa Barbara, California, prior to the symposium. It was an opportunity to continue working on the data we have for zoning of TMP and start documentation of what we have done so far towards establishing a good MPA design for TMP.

Victoria Convention Centre, Victoria, Canada

Whale watching, Victoria

The trip also came with the perks to visit and experience a bit of places like Santa Barbara and Victoria. As a food lover, it’s an adventure of the taste bud – but then true to being Asian, I can’t stand long without having to look for the irresistible rice!

Culinary Adventure

Dinner at El Paso Restaurant, Santa Barbara

But, one of the most important messages that came out from the congress is that we need to communicate. Having the best science is not enough. We may have the best designed MPA but if we do not have support from the public, we may not have the buy-in that we are looking for. We may also have all the right conservation policies and laws in place, supported with strong science but we still need to make all these matters. This emphasised the need to communicate, for various reasons – to raise awareness, advocate, build support and compliance, and many more. In modern days, communications is made easy with modern technologies. The internet came to mind.

This finally brings me to my last sharing of the trip. A particular presentation on “The Role of Modern Communication Technology in Shark Conservation” has caught my attention and interest. The presentation by David Shiffman, the online outreach coordinator for the American Elasmobranch Society, highlight the potential of Facebook as a powerful tool for communication – 500 million users worldwide, available in 70 languages in 191 countries, with 30 billion stories, links, blog posts shared each month. In synthesis, we have blogger and YouTube as examples of technology to help us create our message (content creator) and we have the social media such as the facebook and twitter as a media for message dissemination (content distribution). Woila, we should be able to reach a multitude of people – including the young people.

But of course there are those who are still not into these modern technologies– here we rely on old fashion way of communication. But for now, I am going to try and embrace these new technologies by blogging and FBing away.

IMCC – International Marine Conservation Congress

NCEAS - National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara

TMP – Tun Mustapha Park