he Eye on Oceans and Blue Carbon Special Initiative was formed during the 2011 Eye on Earth Summit and has grown to a membership of over 70 stakeholders with a broad geographic representation across the globe and good gender balance. All other SI facilitators and several

stakeholders also have membership to increase cross-SI opportunities.

Recently, Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager (jglavan@ead.ae) was assigned to be the new facilitator of the SI. There is no consensus chair within the SI as it is decided upon on a rotating basis. This provides the community equal opportunity to help support and guide the direction of the monthly meeting so that it best addresses the community needs.

The SI meets via Webex on a monthly basis based on the best availability of the community. A shared community area was created on Basecamp where the community can share documents, discussions as well as post potential funding opportunities and conference presentations. The Portal is kept up to date by the community as well as by the SI Facilitator.

KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI

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O&BC SI AT A GLANCE

Formation Eye on Earth Summit 2011

Membership 70 international stakeholders

Chair Chair appointed on a rotating basis

Steering Committee under development

Meetings via Webex each month, subject to availability of the community(Basecamp portal created for sharing of documents, discussions, funding opportunities and conference presentations)

Facilitator Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager - jglavan@ead.ae

STRUCTURE AND GOVERNANCE

MISSION STATEMENT

The Eye on Oceans and Blue Carbon SI focuses on collecting data on coastal and oceans ecosystems and making them useful in the context of management for climate change mitigation as well as maintenance of ecosystem services valuable to coastal communities. The SI explores methodologies for collecting appropriate data sets, structures for managing the data-sets and vehicles such as policy or natural resource management tools for making these data useful to decision-making and management of coastal ecosystems for climate change mitigation and ecosystem services.

The community, in its upcoming coordination meeting, will be heavily revising and refreshing its mission, vision and outcome statements so that it is more niche driven as well as for further incorporation of oceans key issues.

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CURRENT PROJECTS

The community is currently developing project fiches and concept proposals for potential funding opportunities, with deliverables identified to be showcased at the Eye on Earth Summit 2015.

A previous project of the SI is the Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon Demonstration Project.

The project set out to improve our understanding of coastal ecosystems and how they help to sequester carbon and provide valuable services to coastal communities. Locally, enhanced local capacity to measure and monitor carbon in coastal ecosystems, and incorporated the data in policy making for sustainable preservation of these environments. As being a GEF Blue Forests 100% co-financed intervention site, the Project aspires to guide other Blue Carbon initiatives to develop the science and data management tools, creating a sophisticated methodology for continuing the preservation of blue carbon habitats.

The synergies between the Demonstration project, the Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon and Associated Ecosystem Services Phase II and the GEF Blue Forests project have been enhanced through pollination of cross project opportunities.

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS

Planning is being undertaken to undertake the first coordination meeting for the SI, taking place in Abu Dhabi, November 2014. The coordination meeting will have the community refresh our vision, outcome and mission statement in a participatory approach so that it best reflects the needs of the community and the niche where there is most need.

FUTURE PROJECT PLANS

The community is currently looking towards creating its SI vision statement, direct feedback mechanisms into the summit, as well as coming together as a community to prepare both project fiches and concept notes.

CROSS SI OPPORTUNITIES

There are critical links with the foundational SIs as they support direct areas which closely touch upon challenges we face such as incentivizing data sharing and knowledge dissemination. There are also obvious touch points with each of the other SIs, including Biodiversity, CSR and Disaster Management.

PHOTO CREDIT: ROB BARNES (GRID-ARENDAL) / AGEDI

KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI