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Milestone 2 Achieved
On Environment Day, 5 June, the Minister for Environment, Energy and Climate Change announces that Seychelles MSP has achieved the second Milestone of the award-winning debt conversion.
Seychelles has designated 26 percent of its territorial waters as marine protection areas to complete the second phase of the debt for conservation finance deal with The Nature Conservancy, the environment minister said on Wednesday. The announcement was made by Wallace Cosgrow, the Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, in his message for the World Environment Day on June 5. With the new designation, which is a product of the Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) process, Seychelles’ protected area is now 350,915 square kilometres of the island nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 1.4 million square kilometres.
Seychelles News Agency – read article here
The Nature Conservancy – read Press Release here
Seychelles MSP – marine zones gazetted for Milestone 2. Implementation and management will begin in 2021 when the marine spatial plan is completed.
Royal Overseas League
Paradise Protection
The global causes of sea-level rise, coral bleaching, plastic pollution et al adversely impact small island states such as Seychelles. To protect its waters, the country has created a Marine Special Plan, which aims to protect this precious ecosystem.
An interview with Seychelles MSP team is featured in the June – August 2019 issue of Royal Overseas League magazine.
Download article – click here
WIOMSA 2019
Seychelles MSP core team is excited to be attending and presenting at the 11th Scientific Symposium of WIOMSA – Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association. Hosted in Mauritius from 1-6 July 2019 a the University of Mauritius, the WIOMSA is the largest open scientific conference in the region on marine and coastal issues!
MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING IN SEYCHELLES
IMPLEMENTING A MARINE SPATIAL PLAN IN SEYCHELLES
WIOMSA website – click here
Climate Change Strategy
Experts met in Seychelles to discuss ecosystem-based adaption. This effort is to contribute to climate change strategies.
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is often referred to as the ‘natural solution to climate change’. This approach recognises that healthy, intact, diverse and well-managed ecosystems provide abundant ecosystem services enabling people and societies to adapt to current climate variability and long-term change.
Jude Bijoux – a Seychellois marine biologist – said Seychelles, a group 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean, is in the process of drafting a Seychelles Climate Change Policy to provide the general framework for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
“For now, the Seychelles National Climate Change Strategy of 2009 remains the main national document addressing climate change adaptation. The EbA approach is firmly rooted in this strategy through one of its supporting principles, which states that ecosystem-based adaptation needs to be further developed to decrease Seychelles’ vulnerability to climate change’,” said Bijoux.
Seychelles News Agency.
3 May 2019
Full story – click here
The rehabilitated coastline at Anse La Mouche through a 3-year project after it was subjected to degradation and erosion. (Photo: Patrick Joubert)
Milestone 2 Gazetted
Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change have signed the Designation Order for the Milestone 2 marine zones.
For more information about Milestone 2, please click here.
Seychelles Marine Spatial Plan – Milestone 2 marine protection areas
Frontiers in Marine Science
The Seychelles MSP core team has published information about the development of ecosystem services to support MSP in a peer-review journal called Frontiers of Marine Science. Published online in an Open Access format, the manuscript was an invited contribution to a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science for a symposium organised at the Fourth International Marine Conservation Congress in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada in 2016.
Access the journal article – click here
Frontiers in Marine Science publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research that advances our understanding of all aspects of the environment, biology, ecosystem functioning and human interactions with the oceans.
Milestone 3 Steps
For more information about the steps in 2019, please see this page – click here
January – February 2019
Objective: Data analysis, mapping, preparing for stakeholder consultations
March – April 2019
Objective: Stakeholder consultations – Inception Workshop Milestone 3
May – June 2019
Objective: Revise MSP Zoning Design 4.3 and draft version 5.0 for Milestone 3
July 2019
Objective: Stakeholder consultations – review zoning design 5.0 for Milestone 3 areas
August – December 2019
Objective: Revisions and stakeholder consultations for Milestone 3 areas
Milestone 3 Launch
The third, and final, milestone of the Seychelles Marine Spatial Plan is being launched in March and April 2019. Meetings with MSP committees, stakeholders and public information workshops are scheduled and dates posted on the Events pages.
Inception Milestone 3 Meetings and Workshops:
- Executive Committee Meeting
- Inception Workshop Milestone 3 – Steering Committee and Technical Working Groups
- Technical Working Group Meeting
- Public Workshop – Mahé
- Public Workshop – Praslin
- 1:1 consultations and bilateral meetings
- Steering Committee Meeting
- Executive Committee Meeting
More information will be posted soon so please check back for more information!
International Year of the Reef. Photo: The Ocean Agency
January 2019 Update
Updates on MSP Milestones, Financing, Governance Arrangements, Biodiversity Layers, E-Monitoring, NEKTON Expedition, and Socio-Economic Impact Assessment and Zoning Design.
Please click here for January 2019 Update.
Electronic monitoring on tuna vessels. Photos: Jason Houston and Kydd Pollock