Urgent action needed to save coral reefs from extinction : ICRI promotes its work in Monaco

©DR

As part of Monaco Ocean Week, which is running until 30 March, an event to promote the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI, www.icriforum.org) was held on 26 March. Monaco is co-chairing the ICRI together with Australia and Indonesia until 2020.

The event brought together more than 50 participants and provided an opportunity to reiterate the key objectives in the ICRI Plan of Action 2018–2020, which was also recently endorsed by the 4^th UN Environment Assembly, including:

• The development of recommendations for states party to the Convention on Biological Diversity regarding a new coral reef preservation target from 2020, in response to the urgent need to act in order to save reefs, which are threatened with large-scale decline by 2050.

• The production of a report on the state of coral reefs at the global level by 2020.

At the meeting, the ICRI’s involvement in the Coral Reef Community of Ocean Action, which it co-chairs alongside UN Environment, was highlighted, and the results of projects co-funded by the Prince’s Government to promote the resilience of coral reefs and associated ecosystems were presented.

(https://oceanconference.un.org/coa/CoralReefs )

*: The Aichi Targets (there are 20 in total) make up the global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020. They were adopted in 2010; new targets will be set in 2020.