Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (ICP26)

Good afternoon, distinguished delegates. We will now move to the discussion panel component of our meeting on marine ecosystem restoration. Before commencing the discussion panel presentations, we wish to draw your attention to the areas of concentration for the discussion panel contained in Document A/AC L.259/L.26, which are intended to identify important issues that the discussion panel may wish to consider. The areas of concentration have taken into account relevant consultations among states during the informal consultations on the draft resolution on oceans and the law of the sea at the 80th session of the General Assembly, as well as discussions at the preparatory meeting which took place on 18th March, March 2026. We also wish to take this opportunity to recall that discussions in the panel are informal in order to allow delegations from states, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to participate actively in the debate. Kindly note that all panel presentations have been posted on the website of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the ahead of the meeting to assist delegations in preparing for discussions. My co-chair and I would like to thank all panelists who have generously accepted our invitation and demonstrated their flexibility in accommodating our requests for them to concentrate the presentations on specific aspects of the topic of focus. We will now begin the first segment of our discussion panel entitled The Status of Marine ecosystems and the role in sustainable development, new developments, approaches, and challenges. We will hear 7 presentations this afternoon. We intend to hear from the first 4 panelists, followed by a question and answer session before proceeding with the remaining 3 panelists. As these panels are also being broadcast over United Nations Web TV, We are also accepting questions from remote viewers. Please email any questions and comments to doalos@un.org. I now wish to give the floor to our first panelist, Greg Reynolds, Second Secretary, Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations. The presentation is entitled Building Climate and Community Resilience through Coordinated Marine Restoration. Mr. Reynolds, you have the floor.

Thank you, co-chair. It's both an honor and a privilege to present, um, to you today on Australia's work both domestically and with our regional partners to build climate and community resilience through coordinated marine restoration. We hope that these perspectives will help enrich the discussion. To start with, to set out um, the— our context. Australia has the third largest marine jurisdiction in the world with more ocean than land territory. It stretches from the cold waters of the Southern Ocean around our— Australia's Antarctic Territory to the tropics in our north, and the vast Pacific and Indian oceans, uh, ocean basins to our east and west. Our marine ecosystems are highly biodiverse with more than 33,000 recorded plants and animals, as well as scores of species visiting our waters during their annual migrations, everything from elephant seals and whale sharks to tiny handfish and the only sea dragons in the world. More than that, the ocean is central to our identity, culture, security, and well-being. It's an economic powerhouse. Our marine industries support more than 700,000 jobs and contribute over $200 billion per year in economic output. In a country of only 28 million people, those are very significant numbers. Also significant are the challenges facing the world's ocean, with the impacts of climate change adding pressure every day. Climate-induced changes are becoming locked into the system, and the ocean is expected to continue to change and face disruptions for hundreds of years once emissions have stabilized. Pollution, plastics, illegal fishing, habitat loss, and inappropriate coastal development compound that pressure. This is felt acutely in our region where the livelihoods and cultures of Pacific Island countries are deeply tied to the ocean. The Blue Pacific is home to 27% of the world's coral reefs, which 8 million people rely on for food, transport, and livelihoods. It's no surprise that these countries are global ocean leaders. Like many small island developing states, the Pacific The Pacific is on the front line of the climate crisis, and Pacific people are already experiencing its effects. Declining ocean health could cost the global economy more than $400 billion US dollars annually by 2050, and $2 trillion by the end of the century. For us at home, climate change has driven almost 200 of our marine species to shift their distribution over the past 20 years. We've seen coral bleaching, mass mangrove dieback, And last year, an unprecedented harmful algal bloom hit large swathes of the South Australian coastline, killing marine life, closing fisheries, beaches, and tourism businesses. More than a year later, that bloom is still affecting some areas. Recognising the connection between ocean health and economic prosperity, Australia is a proud member of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Sustainably managing an ocean the size and diversity of Australia's is not simple. And we're approaching the challenge from several angles. For example, we have one of the world's largest marine protected area networks. Marine parks now cover more than half of our vast ocean, 24% of which is classified as highly protected. Last year at the UN Ocean Conference, we committed to reach 30% of our ocean as highly protected by 2030. We were among the first countries to sign the High Seas Biodiversity Treaty, and in March this year, our parliament passed the necessary legislation to enable ratification. As a result, we're now preparing the first— for the first generation of High Seas Marine Protected Area proposals, and we're working closely with regional partners to share our expertise and gather the necessary science and data to inform proposals. Protection alone isn't enough in the face of mounting pressures on the ocean and coastal ecosystems. We're also working to restore ocean ecosystems to reverse decline repair what's lost and reestablish ecosystem function, and improve species and ecosystem resilience to threats and buffer against climate change. Restoring an ecosystem is never a straightforward task, and ocean restoration is even less, um, advanced than terrestrial. Activities in ocean environments can bring additional challenges, such as a lack of baseline data to work from, higher costs, and harder-to-access sites. Consultation and partnership between government, First Nations peoples, researchers, local businesses and communities, and non-government organizations is critical, and that takes time to do well, particularly in a federal system like ours. This often involve— involves multiple levels of government. With climate change impacts baked into the system, a key consideration for restoration efforts is climate adaptive capacity. This means taking time in project design to select appropriate interventions, species, and strains that are likely to be compatible with expected climate pressures for that site. We recognize we might not always have the right knowledge or information at the right time to fully integrate adaptation into restoration, so we need to continue improving our understanding of the impacts of climate change, the resilience capacity of ecosystems and species, and effectively monitor and manage those challenges. As pressures on our coasts and ocean increase, there's a growing need to accelerate ecosystem restoration and consider coordinated intervention at scale. We'll be hearing some detailed examples of restoration activities from my fellow panelists, but I wanted to briefly mention a few examples from Australia. Restoration of degrading or declining ecosystems such as coral and shellfish reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, and kelp is underway across the country to build the resilience of both ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. On-ground activities can be powerful mechanisms to support businesses and community recovery while also connecting locals to their marine environment and empowering them to be active stewards of nature and heritage. Additional benefits include carbon sequestration, improved habitats for marine species, coastal protection, climate resilience, and increased ecosystem productivity and new jobs. The first example I'll share is the Australian government's partnership with the, the Nature Conservancy Reef Builder, which established native oyster and mussel reefs at 21 sites around Australia. Shellfish reefs used to cover a third of Australia's enormous coastline. These reefs are like the ocean's kidneys, filtering billions of liters of seawater as well as reducing damage from waves and storms. However, dredging and overharvesting since colonization wiped around 90%— wiped out about 90% of those vital ecosystems. In December, this project was named a World Restoration Flagship under the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, recognizing it as one of the most ambitious science-based examples of large-scale ecosystem restoration in action. Together with the South Australian Government, we've also funded the Nature Conservancy to deliver large-scale shellfish reef support to support additional recovery and resilience in response to the harmful algal bloom. They'll work with traditional owners, local communities, and the oyster industry to develop the reef. I'm very much looking forward to hearing Mr. Hancock talk about the ocean— the Nature Conservancy's oyster reef restoration work in the North Sea shortly after this. Moving on to another kind of reef, climate change is the biggest threat to our iconic Great Barrier Reef as well as tropical reefs worldwide. Through our Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, we're investigating and piloting new ways to help coral reefs resist, adapt, and recover from the impacts of climate change. Led by a consortium of research institutions, government agencies, and industry partners, The program is the world's largest collective effort to protect coral reefs from the impacts of climate change. It emphasizes scalable, long-term solutions and aims to build a toolbox of methods that can be deployed across large areas of the reef. This includes prototyping interventions such as coral seeding, breeding more heat-resistant corals, and fogging and cloud brightening to reduce ocean temperatures. The program also supports monitoring and modeling systems to guide decision-making and track progress. Interventions proven to be technically feasible and scalable are then deployed at pilot scales before being considered for a wider application. We're also collaborating with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation through the Reef Trust Partnership to deliver large-scale coordinated action to protect and restore the reef. It's the government's largest, largest ever single investment in reef protection, aiming to spark new and innovative responses from the private sectors and philanthropists— philanthropies— which can then be deployed throughout our Pacific region and beyond. Moving to the temperate zone, under our Saving Native Species program, the University of Tasmania is working with Tasmanian Indigenous communities, coastal industries, and volunteers to bring back giant kelp forests. These rich ecosystems were once common over rocky reefs, providing rich habitat, including for rock lobsters and other species important for fisheries. However, now only fragments remain after significant climate change-driven declines in the recent decades. The university trialed techniques to grow baby kelp in hatcheries and plant them on rocky reefs. To scale up restoration, we funded the team to train volunteer recreational divers to get involved in the efforts. Including planting of kelp-seeded twine and the thinning of competitor species. To give the planted kelp the best chance, the project also involves commercial dive fishers targeting restoration sites to harvest overgrazing urchins. In recognition of the project's dual environmental and economic value, it recently won the Tasmania Seafood Industry's Environmental Stewardship Award. The Saving Native Species program is also funding on-the-ground activities to restore habitat and threatened marine species, including the red handfish, white seahorse, and cauliflower soft coral. My last example, our traditional custodians and indigenous rangers carry out a range of on-ground restoration work on sea country. Sea country refers to the ancestral, cultural, and spiritual connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to marine and coastal environments. First Nation peoples in Australia have maintained deep, continuous relationships with sea country for over 65,000 years, managing coastal and marine ecosystems through sophisticated knowledge systems and sustainable practices. A key shift in Australia's approach to marine protection and restoration is recognizing Indigenous peoples as partners in governance, not just stakeholders. Australia's Indigenous Protected Areas, or IPAs, are areas of land and sea that are— that traditional owners have agreed to manage for biodiversity conservation. IPA's program is a world-leading model of Indigenous-led conservation. To help address the finance gap for restoration work, we've established financial mechanisms such as the blue carbon method under our emissions reduction fund. Work is also underway to consider how tools developed for the nature repair market can be adjusted to suit coastal and marine methods. Complementing our restoration work, we're also reducing pressures on the ocean through various policies and programs at home, such as net zero by 2050 and work towards a circular economy, and our international commitments under the Global Biodiversity Framework, the 100% Alliance, and our commitment to seek globally coordinated action through Plastics Pollution Treaty negotiations and partnering with 14 Pacific Island countries in the Pacific Ocean Litter Project. To sum up, by combining ecological restoration with climate adaptation strategies, we're working together at home, regionally, and globally for a healthy ocean that can support a strong and fair ocean economy now and for generations to come. Thank you.

I thank Mr. Reynolds for his presentation. I now wish to give the floor to our second panelist, Laura Bowie, Executive Director, Gulf of America Alliance. The presentation is entitled New Approaches to Address the Challenges of Gulf Ecosystem Restoration. Ms. Bowie, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you, co-chairs and distinguished delegates. Good afternoon. My name is Laura Bowie, and I'm the Executive Director for the Gulf of America Alliance. The Gulf Alliance was formed by the 5 Gulf state governors several years ago to address issues that are common to all 5 Gulf states. Our mission demonstrates a reality that's increasingly evident around the world. Healthy ecosystems, healthy marine ecosystems in particular, are the foundation for healthy economies and are therefore inseparable. Let me just set the stage here a little bit. The Gulf of America is an economic engine for the United States. It supports more than half a million jobs just in these 5 Gulf states alone, generates approximately $133 billion in GDP annually, and hosts 6 of the 10 busiest ports in the United States. Industries such as shipping, Energy, fisheries, tourism, and manufacturing depend directly on the health of Gulf coastal and marine ecosystems. These thriving economies rely heavily on habitats, clean water, and abundant fish and wildlife populations. These ecosystems provide critical services that underpin sustainable development Coastal wetlands, barrier islands, and beaches reduce storm impacts. They protect coastal infrastructure. They support tourism and enhance community resilience. Across the Gulf, habitat loss, stronger storms, sea level rise— all of these things are degrading marine ecosystems and reducing their ability to provide these benefits to sustainable industries. Clean water sustains commercial and recreational fisheries. It strengthens food security and supports livelihoods. However, in the Gulf, nutrient runoff transported through the Mississippi River watershed contributes to a seasonal hypoxic zone, or a dead zone, that can reach the size of a small U.S. state. This forces commercial fishers to travel farther offshore, increasing operational costs and reducing economic efficiency. And our healthy economy is also dependent upon thriving wildlife and fisheries. According to the Hart Research Institute, the Gulf of America is home to over 15,000 species of marine and coastal wildlife. It's this tremendous biodiversity that supports industries like recreational fishing, commercial fishing, hunting, and ecotourism. But at the same time, changing environmental conditions are shifting the ranges for certain species. We call it tropicalization. Tropical species are moving northward. Salt marshes are transitioning to mangrove systems. Ecosystems, and in some areas valuable habitats such as seagrass beds are under immense stress. These changes affect fisheries, biodiversity, and ecosystem services upon which all of these communities depend. Around the Gulf Region, restoration efforts occur at the local scale, such as, you know, wetland restoration in Louisiana, oyster reefs in Louisiana and Mississippi, or beach and dune restoration in Florida and Texas. These projects improve the biodiversity of the area, strengthen their coastal resilience, support fisheries, and protect communities from extreme weather. While these efforts provide positive benefits locally, restoration at scale faces significant challenges. One of the most overlooked challenges is restoration supply. Successful restoration depends on reliable access to materials such as native plants for wetlands restoration, oyster spat, sediment, and specialized expertise. In many regions, restoration demand is growing faster than the availability of these resources. That creates bottlenecks. That can delay projects and increase operational costs. Another challenge is coordination. Ecosystems do not recognize political boundaries. Water quality, fisheries, sediment transport, and species movements occur across jurisdictions, requiring collaboration among governments, scientists, communities, industry, and NGO organizations. This is where regional multi-partner approaches become essential. For more than two decades, the Gulf Alliance has served as a regional ocean partnership established by the five Gulf states to address shared priorities. Today, we convene more than 1,100 people from government, academia, industry, and communities and civil society. The 5 Gulf States are not always of the same political persuasion, if you will. They're not always of the same opinions about how to address issues. But there are at least 5 or 6 issues upon which they all agree, 5 or 6 common ecological objectives like habitat restoration, water quality improvements, species conservation, and coastal resilience. And there's enough work to be done on those 5 or 6 issues to keep us all busy. Our role is not to replace the restoration efforts. Rather, it's to make them more effective through coordination, knowledge sharing, and strategic partnerships. We facilitate collaboration identify technical expertise, and connect partners to funding opportunities. And we help track restoration needs and resource availability across the region. Specifically, we provide capacity. I heard this a lot this morning. We provide the capacity that it just takes a little bit of dedicated effort and it can go a long way. Our staff facilitates collaboration and identifies technical experts expertise to enhance shared learning experiences. Through intentional and regular stakeholder meetings, we keep the interested parties talking. Um, we keep them collaborating and learning from one another, much like this committee at the UN. We also connect partners to funding opportunities, and we track restoration needs and resource availability across the region. Through this approach, we have learned several lessons that may be applicable globally. First, you need to focus on the issues that the partnership can all agree would benefit from this regional, multi-jurisdictional approach and stay away from the divisive ones at first. It's important to get an early win for one or more of the shared ecological objectives. Um, in order to prove the value of the cross-boundary coordination. And 3, there needs to be a group of people whose job it is to facilitate this cross-boundary collaboration. What we have found is, after 22 years of this particular type of coordination, is that collaboration produces exponential results. It reduces duplication of effort, It accelerates learning and implementation of emerging technologies, and it leverages investments and it leverages resources. The GOLF experience shows that when we work together across sectors, jurisdictions, and disciplines, we achieve outcomes that no single organization can do alone. I would like to conclude that regional partnership networks such as the Gulf Alliance should be recognized as a critical or vital mechanism for sustainable development and cross-boundary marine restoration. For more information about the Gulf Alliance, you can go to our website, GulfofAmericaAlliance.org, or visit this QR code. But I'm happy to answer questions now or during the Q&A period, or you're welcome to contact me.

Thank you so much, Ms. Bovee. Sorry for mispronouncing your name earlier. Thank you for your presentation. We will come to questions later in the session. Let me now wish to give the floor to our third panelist, Bose Hancock, Senior Marine Restoration Scientist, Global Oceans Team, The Nature Conservancy. They are unfortunately unable to be with us in person today, but have kindly recorded their presentation regarding partnering with offshore wind to develop marine habitat restoration in the mesophotic zone, oyster reef restoration in the North Sea. Can I ask the Secretariat to proceed with the presentation?

Good afternoon, and thanks very much for the opportunity to present the work on oyster reef restoration in the North Sea, particularly partnering with offshore wind. What I'd like to do is run through just a very brief stage setting for marine habitat restoration. Apologies to those of you who are completely familiar, that'll be brief. I'll then touch on why oysters and the benefits before describing the situation for oyster reefs in Europe and the oyster reef restoration demonstrations that are being done in conjunction with the offshore wind industry in the North Sea. So the critical coastal ecosystems are the focus for all of the marine habitat restoration that's been done to date. And that's for obvious reasons. These are nearshore. They are incredibly powerful and productive habitats. Very important nursery areas for things like juvenile fish, and they're accessible and easy to, to get to. The vegetated habitats are displayed on the screen here, and the other habitat type is the reefs, the coral reefs and the shellfish reefs. What I should point out here is that these are actually ecological equivalents They perform exactly the same function in the ecology of the systems. Corals have the advantage of being in nice warm clear tropical water, whereas the shellfish tend to be in higher latitudes, dominate in higher latitudes that is not so warm and clear. The shellfish are also edible, particularly the oysters, so those reefs no longer exist. However, they would fill that same function if they did. We've been working on the benefits of oyster reef for over 2 decades now and have well-documented ecosystem services, both ecological services and community services. I won't dwell on all of those. I would like to just point out though that the real power of an oyster reef comes from the filtering function. I mean, a pile of rock in the ocean tends to be an advantage because most of our ocean space is limited in the biogenic structuring habitat that's there. And a rock provides a number of these same services. The advantage of oysters is the filtration. They filter large volumes of water and they take out of that water pretty much all of the particulate. They select what they want to eat, the rest of it is attached to a mucus thread, it's spat out, it's heavy, and it sinks into that reef structure. So what they are doing is capturing all of the particulate material that would not have been available to the animals in the reef and feeding it into the reef. And the productivity of that area just booms. You can imagine that being fed, it increases the density of all of the bottom of the trophic layer. So the bottom of the food chain goes crazy and therefore feeds all of the animals above it. The other thing about the oyster reefs is that we've been doing this quite a long time. The oyster reef has been conducted around the world for well over 2 decades. TNC itself has been doing work in America, all through Europe, China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, hundreds of projects, and it's certainly not just TNC doing this work. So there's a deep bench strength of experience to draw from. So if we look at the North Sea region, there has been an important place for historical ecology. We need to describe what these habitats once looked like in order to set the scale for restoration. And that's something that's been published recently by Thurston, an excellent historical ecology. It focused on the entire Europe area. What I'm showing here is just a chart of the North Sea region, and records were dredged from— excuse the pun— dredged from all sorts of sources. This is not information that is something you can look up on Google. It comes from travel logs, fisheries records, poems, newspapers, a lot of different sources. From those sources, less than 25% gave us a high confidence of the area and the location. But just from that, you know, less than 25% of records, we can document with high confidence the loss of 1.75 million hectares of oyster reef from the North Sea region. So there's no question that this was once a dominating structuring habitat in the region, and it is now gone, completely collapsed. It's quite easy to actually go through the IUCN red listing process with that kind of information. So if we look at that chart of the location and area of oyster reefs on the right and compare that to the present and future planned areas for offshore wind in the North Sea, you don't have to look at those two charts side by side for very long to know that there is a high degree of overlap from where oysters used to be, where oyster reef used to be, and where offshore wind is or is planned. Now, you can't undertake any marine habitat restoration without a policy environment that incentivizes that restoration. And that is something that is— oops, apologies— something that I don't have time to dive into today, but just to touch on briefly, with this mitigation hierarchy. You know, all projects have an impact. We can avoid some of those impacts, we can minimise some impact we don't— we can't avoid, and for that residual impact, we can actually put in place offsets to mitigate some of that residual impact. But even when done well, that only gets us to no net loss. So for all of the countries that are signatories to the Global Biodiversity Framework, and particularly in Europe with the Nature Restoration Regulation, there is an incentive to go beyond no net loss, and that is restoration. So just to say that in Europe there is in fact a policy environment that is a tailwind, it is conducive to habitat restoration. So how do we restore an oyster reef? Restoring an oyster reef is essentially the reverse of overfishing an oyster reef. To overfish an oyster reef, dredgers would go out, scrape the oysters off the reef, sell them, but then they'd go back, break up the reef structure, break up that base that is made up of thousands of generations of shells cemented together, bring them on board and sell them to the lime kilns as a valuable source, raw material for burning to make lime to make mortar. Building the cities of the world, be it London, Paris, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Beijing, Sydney. They're all built using mortar from burnt oyster shells. And then once everything's gone, so the reverse process of that, is to reconstruct a reef base and then add the oysters to the outside. This photo is rock that's come down the Mississippi River, destined for Matagorda Bay to make the Half Moon Reef in Texas. These images are actually recycled concrete rubble to make an oyster reef around the scour apron of the third runway for the International Airport in Hong Kong. And there are images of limestone to be deployed in Gulf St Vincent in South Australia to make Mindara Reef. And the important point here is that reconstructing the reef base is the expensive part of oyster reef restoration. Handling this much rock at sea is expensive. Adding the biology later is actually, by comparison, quite cheap. So if we translate that to the North Sea, we have an industry, the offshore wind industry, that needs to put a scour protection layer around any infrastructure that touches the bottom of the North Sea., and that infrastructure needs to be, you know, the— sorry, the scour protection layer needs to be about 15 metres wide. So a monopile will have a 30-metre-wide layer of rock, a metre deep, 30 metres wide around the base. This tripod arrangement of pylon on the right-hand side has scour protection all around it, and on the left is depicting a vessel deploying rock over a cable crossing. So any area on the bottom of the ocean where cables cross also needs protection. Now this is being put out as part of the business as usual for offshore wind, and they call it scour protection. I call it reef base. This is an industry that's putting out reef base at a scale that an NGO couldn't possibly think of. So it's an incredible opportunity, and the, I think, obligation of the restoration community is to figure out how to add the biology, how to add the oysters to that rock before it goes out to form scour protection, and how to do that cheaply and conveniently enough to the industry that they are incentivized to go along with it. In order to do that, there is a technique called remote setting, which has been quite useful. Hatcheries produce oyster larvae for aquaculture, and they're very good at doing that. There's no point replicating the hatchery process. So what we're doing is buying oysters, asking the hatcheries to buy to spawn native oysters. So these are native oysters that are going out, the European flat oyster. They're grown up in the hatchery, filtered down in a coffee filter, Top centre there is a highly technical piece of equipment, the coffee filter, and on the right is a photo of 2.5 million oyster larvae that are ready to settle on something solid. They can then be packed up in damp cloth, put over ice, and they go into a suspended animation and can be transported anywhere in Europe to where it makes sense to convert that very small package of a lot of oysters into a large volume of very heavy rock with oysters attached to it. And this is a remote setting container in the port of Rotterdam, part of the RISO project. So the larvae were transported to the port of Rotterdam before being added into a setting container and attached to rock. Here's another project, the REEFcovery project in Belgium. This is actually in the car park at the University of Ghent. That's not on the ocean, so we've set up a recirculating system here. There's a setting tank in the 20-foot shipping container on the left. The container on the right is the water treatment container, so that it has the protein skimmers, the biofilters, the heating, the water conditioning to support the container on the left. And that's the rock with larvae being set on it in that container on the left. And where those oysters are destined to go is in fact the Princess Elisabeth Energy Island in Belgium. And this is actually a diagram of a real vessel. A vessel is depicted at the bottom right there, but the reason for using a 20-foot shipping container is because that is purpose-built to go on the deck of a ship. The ships are used to handling these shipping containers that can be locked down on deck, and when the vessel has finished its scour deployment, can grab containers of spat-on rock to add to the, to the surface of the scour protection layer. The Princess Elizabeth Energy Island is being built in the Belgian section of the North Sea in 30 meters and it's really intended to be the energy substation for the power generation in the Belgian North Sea. And that's a mock-up of the energy island and the scour protection around the base with SpatOnRock deployed. The RISO project from the Netherlands is deploying rock to two cable crossing areas that are being run by TENET. They're the responsibility of the grid operator for the Netherlands and southern Germany, and that work is, is due to expand. So where I envisage this work going and where I think it is possible to take this is to set up these remote setting operations where ships are loading the rock to be deployed as scour protection. And do that in a way that within crane reach of that vessel is a line of shipping containers containing oyster spat on rock, so that as that ship is loaded and ready to sail, it can grab as many containers of spat on rock as is required for that particular deployment, lock them down on deck, and off they go. Minimum disruption to their operation., and they have their spatter-on-rock ready to deploy at the end of their deployment of the scour protection rock. That is the potential for restoration at a scale that we haven't seen before in marine restoration, and I think is particularly exciting. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have, either through the meeting organisers or via email.

I would like to ask the Secretariat to pass on our thanks to Dr. Hancock for the presentation.

Good afternoon, delegates and participants.

And I now wish to give the floor to our fourth panelist, Liana Talau McManus, Marine Science and Policy Consultant. They are unfortunately unable to be with us in person today, that have kindly recorded the presentation entitled "A Planning Process for Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Shared Large Marine Ecosystems : Lessons from the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand." Can I ask the Secretary-General to proceed with the presentation?

Good afternoon, delegates and participants. Today I present lessons drawn from an ongoing planning process for two shared or transboundary large marine ecosystems, the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. I will discuss the main findings of the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, or TDA, the identified priority actions that can make up a Strategic Action Program, or SAP, and how the coordinating body of the SEAS of East Asia, or COBSE, can integrate this tool for regional ocean governance. In 2016, the global assessment known as the Transboundary Waters Assessment Program of the Global Environment Facility found that the LMEs of Southeastern Asia were most at risk. The South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand sit at ground zero for global environmental change. It overlaps with the Indo-Pacific Oceanic Warm Pool, in orange, which heats the overlying atmosphere and shapes global climate. These are next to the Coral Triangle, in blue, which boasts of being the epicenter for shallow marine water biodiversity. The South China Sea, which helps maintain this diversity, contains a third of global marine species count, but the major river systems in this region convey the most single-use plastics to the global ocean. How can ecosystems be restored in such shared and environmentally challenged region. A participatory assessment and planning process may be key to restoring ecosystems in shared LMEs. From TDA 1.0 in 2000 to TDA 2.0 in 2026, The drivers now include climate change. Pollution currently features nutrients and plastics. Biodiversity, both structural and harvested, remain as the third driver. TDA 2.0 uses metrics to describe the states of pollution, ecosystems, and fisheries., and to determine changes in climate, human well-being, and governance. We had 6 national teams from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to conduct national analyses, and a regional team implemented the same at LME scale. We shared our findings and ranked priority transboundary actions in a face-to-face meeting last January. I will present a few of the regional TDA findings. The 6 countries doing the TDA, plus Malaysia and Singapore, make up 25% of the global population and less than 10% of the Earth's area, but these are responsible for over 34% of global emissions in 2024 and account for 20% of global warming in the last 83 years. In terms of vulnerability to climate phenomena like storms and floods, the Philippines is most vulnerable. Regionally, close to 600 million are at high flood risk, of which 100 million are poor, based on data year 2020. Major pollution issues are nutrients from agri and aquaculture and single-use plastics. Climate changes water quality by diminishing oxygen content and stressing out fauna. Waters becoming more acidic puts shellfish at risk. In addition, climate extremes can cause waste infrastructure to break and lead to toxic pulses of pollutants. Ecosystems are decreasing in area. For mangroves and corals, the rates have been reduced, but lack of data for coastal wetlands is a challenge. For seagrasses, the losses are great and may have increased. Although ecosystem protection and management continue to be implemented, the absence of transboundary MPAs and poor monitoring data are major roadblocks. The news for fisheries is dire. The fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand has progressed from being overfished to being collapsed. In the South China Sea, overfished stocks can begin to collapse if no regional action is taken. Climate change is changing stock composition because of species-specific heat tolerances. Human well-being in terms of longevity, education, and income has improved in the last quarter century. Gender Equality Index for the region is only 13 points from full gender parity. However, Zero poverty will not be achieved in 2030. Projections estimate about 200 million on average will remain poor by 2030. Fisheries in 2019 was valued at $59 billion in 2010 US dollars, among the highest across transboundary LMEs globally. The regional coral reef tourism accounts for slightly more than 25% of annual global reef tourism. However, sustaining these livelihoods is challenged by the current state of ecosystems and fish stocks. Finally, ocean governance is severely constrained in the region. Weak regional cooperation, limited commitment of participating countries, and the lack of regional and national science hubs underpin this weakness. I'm happy to note that the regional and national teams have almost completed their respective analyses. While the TDA is science and evidence-based, the SAP is an ongoing and challenging negotiated process. Here I will present the aspirational structure and key actions of SAP 2.0. The regional SAP is envisioned to consist of transboundary actions that mutually reinforce national actions, as shown in this enclosed box. At the heart of the SAP is the protection of ecosystem services. Each proposed transboundary conservation action is evaluated for its net benefits against the cost of implementation. Mindful that ecosystems are unique and each kind has no substitute. Implementing functional transboundary MPAs and monitoring compliance to harmonized regional pollution load standards are key elements of effective regional governance. Strategic mitigation of pollution can include capture and recycling at source and the smart inclusion of livelihood activities. Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture and the extraction of organic seaweed fertilizer are potential revenue-generating activities that can also help to reduce use of polluting synthetic fertilizer. Establishing transboundary MPAs properly situated to protect ecosystems for biodiversity and fisheries, and which have functional links with national MPAs, will be groundbreaking and transformative for the shared LMEs. Conserving living carbon in national and transboundary MPAs can be used as carbon credits for capturing carbon dioxide to mitigate global warming. Revenues from this can be used to seed transboundary conservation, associated livelihood, and for core monitoring and evaluation of management actions. The use of the TDA-SAP tool can enable COBSE to integrate an iterative assessment and planning as core functions of regional governance so that it can track and improve the health of shared LMEs. In summary, we aspire for regional governance to conserve the shared ecosystem services of the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand as the only viable path to ensuring resilience and well-being of surrounding coastal states. We hope that the participatory TDA-SAP approach helps to curve this path even in a changing climate. Thank you.

I would like to ask the Secretariat to pass on our thanks to Ms. McManus for the presentation. We have heard the first four panellists and as announced earlier, we will now pause the presentations and open the floor for questions and comments before we hear the remaining three panellists. The floor is now open. For questions and comments. I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Belgium.

Thank you, Chair.

I had a question towards Laura, maybe, since a lot of what you said resonated with the presentation I will be giving later this week, where indeed transboundary cooperation across sectors can be very useful in actually saving money. But I was wondering, because you said a lot of the organizations and activities that you are doing are being organizing workshops, making sure there is staff. And so I was wondering, that also, of course, costs money. And we are in a time of saving economy. Like, how do you get the funding? Or do you make sure that you get your funding for the next couple of years?

Great question. Always a great question about funding, right? We have great partners in the region, especially our consultant industry sector and our— most of our industry sectors are partners at the table with the Gulf Alliance. We ensure that everybody has the same voice at the table, therefore they feel valued. And so when they— when we do have moments when we need funding for these cross-boundary meetings, They are there for sponsorships. And we also charge registration fees, although we keep those very, very low to ensure that our students, our academic students, and our state and agency— state and federal agency personnel can be sure to attend. Again, we try to make an equal playing field for everybody at the table. So we try to keep the cost low, and that's how we do it.

Since there is no other request for the floor, we can move on to the remaining 3 panelists, and I will now give the floor to our 5th panelist, Lorenzo Alvarez Philip. From the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the presentation is entitled Coral Reefs: Crisis, Outlook, and the Course for Action. You have the floor.

Thank you very much for— thank you very much for the invitation. It's a real honor to be here. Talking about the coral reefs, their current status, and why I do believe we must keep protecting them. First, coral reefs are the largest living physical structures in our planet. That means that they are actually built by a living organism. They are the most biologically diverse systems in the sea. 25% of the marine biodiversity is in coral reefs, even though they only are occupy 1% of the ocean. More than 500 million people rely on them for their food and livelihoods, and they provide important environmental services like coastal protection. Coral reefs distribute all across the tropical and sometimes even subtropical areas. Over 100 countries have a coral reef in their territories. From a human perspective, coral reefs providing important ecosystem services valued up to $9.9 trillion annually through fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, which underlines their importance for food security, resilience, and the blue economy. This is just an example in Mexico, my country. Just the Mexican Caribbean, what you see there is Cancún, And just this stripe of land is protected by coral reefs, and the value is up to $58 million annually. If we use the same logic through the whole world, it's about $4 billion a year in global— protecting from global damages. Coral reefs are living structures. They are built by corals, which are animals. And as they grow, they start accumulating calcium carbonate, which is basically rock. And this is the construction process. But then we also have the eroding processes that are occurring naturally in coral reefs. We have biological processes of erosion like the parrotfish or sea urchins. But we also have chemical and physical processes of erosion. The balance between these two processes is what defines whether a coral reef is building and providing the services and the functions that we depend on or whether it's only eroding. Services like structural complexity for biodiversity, reef construction, tracking sea level rise, coastal protection, and sand production depends largely on the capacity of having positive balance of reef budgets, reef carbonate budgets. The key element in a coral reef are the corals as they provide this structure, this calcium carbonate as they grow. So we can see what happened to them in many— it has done in many places across the world, but I'm going to show you what happened in the Caribbean, the most recent report of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. And basically shows a step decline from 1980 to 2024, 2025, with a loss up to 80% in just a few decades. And the very last drop that you see in the graph from 2003 to 2005 is due to the most— the strongest and most intense heat wave event that we have had in the Caribbean, but also elsewhere in the world. That kill a substantial amount of corals. We also, when a coral die, something else is start occupying their place. In this case, in this regional assessment, it's clearly macroalgae. This is not exactly the same case in all the regions in the world, but in the Caribbean it's very clearly, it's very clear this pattern of increasing macroalgae. And what we have here is basically that ecosystem is not changing, is not just changing the organism that dominate, but it's changing the entire nature and the dynamics of the system from a reef-building process to basically lock in a degradation state. What are the main drivers? There are multiple drivers happening in different regions. And probably they interact among them. However, we have coral scientists, we have identified the three main drivers. Obviously, the first one is global warming, climate change, which can kill corals in a matter of a few months. I will show you a video next of how an entire reef can perish in just a matter of a few months. We also in the Caribbean, but also in other regions, have the widespread events of coral mortality. Which can produce diseases— sorry, diseases that can produce widespread coral mortality. And the third one is all the damages that come from the coast. This is coastal development, pollution, sedimentation, nutrient enrichment. Corals live in very clear water, so when we have plenty of nutrients, this is favoring the growing of macroalgae. And this video just shows you a very nice reef in the Mexican Caribbean. All the corals that you see were alive in May 2023, just before the heat wave hit this reef. Then in August 2023, all of them are bleached. When we talk about coral bleaching, basically we are talking about a stress. The corals here are still alive, but they are severely stressed. If the stress continues for a long, a long time or is very high, what will produce is a drastic or a widespread of coral mortality, which is what you have here in October 2023. Basically the entire reef is, is dead. Unfortunately, as painful that is, this is not only happening in one place, this is happening across the region. Similar reports of widespread coral mortality have already reported in Florida, in Barbados, and in many other places in, in the Caribbean Sea because of the heat wave of 2023 and 2022. 2024. Ultimately, the coral mortality compromises the capacity of reefs to grow and generate the barriers that we depend on. And these recent studies in my group have shown that 70% of Caribbean reefs are in net erosional states already. This is very concerning. In the photo, well, the series of photos in the slide basically shows a transition from healthy reefs in the Florida Keys to a completely degraded state in which it's not just coral mortality, but it's the transition in the complexity of the reef that will provide all the services that we've been talking. And with this degradation, basically we are returning to the value and the benefits we receive from the reefs. We will be more susceptible to flooding and the storms, hurricanes, and other events. There is already people suffering the loss of coral reefs in their livelihoods, their protein intake. And overall, if we are talking about these big services such as coastal protection, basically we will be receiving less. Benefits from the coral reefs if they completely disappear. I don't want to finish with very gloomy news, so there is still some hope. We still have some reefs that are in good shape in the Caribbean. What we decided in this slide that I'm presenting was trying to combined ecological modeling to look for where reefs with high building capacity can be found in the Caribbean. And then we asked the question whether these reefs were in more resilient— thinking in the climate stress areas. And the last question was whether they were in marine protected areas or not. What you are seeing in the, in the map is basically all the yellow reefs are those reefs that are likely had a good potential for reef construction. They are in resilient areas and they are not in a marine protected area. So this is a clear opportunity for governments to start protecting more coral reefs. And it's not just protecting by decreeing marine protected areas, but it's also to having functional marine protected areas, which is another step. There are obviously, and I think that in this meeting we will be talking a lot about restoration and positive interventions. I just want to present a few of them, but thinking in two scales, in the temporal scale and the spatial scale. So when we heard about outplanting corals, treatment, rescue them. We are usually thinking in the smallest scale, both in spatial and in time. If we talk about, for example, finding thermally tolerant corals, as mentioned before, we might be increasing the scale because we might be finding some corals that we'd be able to tolerate, for for example, future stress in temperature. However, we might not be covering the entire reef system in one nation or in different regions. So therefore, we need to keep working in the upper two levels with where the causes that actually drove the coral decline. And I also want to point out here that we have the opportunity as nations and international community to work in these two aspects. First, if we want to think in restoration, in helping corals, we might need to keep funding research because only research going to open the question, give us the answers to recover corals. But we also need to work at higher level, policy level, international, at the national level to mitigate these big drivers of change like climate change and regional land-based pollution and coastal development. Finally, I want to, to, to conclude this presentation with the key recommendations made by the International Coral Reef Initiative and the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the two largest organizations working with nations, scientists, managers to improve and protect coral reefs. And basically they have— they set these 5 recommendations. The first 3 are in the aspect in this global, national collaboration. We need to integrate coral reefs into national and regional strategies. We need to reduce local and global threats, really important.. And we need to strengthen protected areas, not just having more protected areas, but giving the resources and giving them the strength so they can actually be a real refuge for corals. But then we also have like the more direct actions like maintaining and improving research and monitoring systems. And scaling up restoration efforts. And here I want to point out that restoration is just one of the tools we have in the key— in the tool— in the toolkit. Doing or focusing only on restoration and forgetting the other things might not be enough. So I invite you, I, I, I really I would like to see that we as a global community keep working in all these 5 aspects that goes from the global, international, national, and then also restoration, but restoration is just one part of the whole history. And with that, I conclude. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Alvarez-Philippe. For your presentation. I will now give the floor to our 6th panelist, Christina Boyd, research scientist, Future of Marine Ecosystems Lab, Dalhousie University, lead scientist, Community Algae Restoration Initiative, Canada. The presentation is entitled Community Algae Restoration Initiative: Community-Based Algae Research and Restoration in Nova Scotia. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Co-chair. Thank you for the opportunity to present on our work with the Community Eelgrass Restoration Initiative and how we're doing community-based eelgrass research and restoration in Nova Scotia, Canada. Before I start, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation of being able to work on the lands and waters of the Mi'kmaq peoples on this unceded territory. To start off, to set the stage, eelgrass, also known by its Latin name Zostera marina, is one of globally 72 seagrass species. And a basic fact that, however, is not commonly known is it's a true flowering plant. So it's not an algae. This is usually where we start when we do outreach and education, and most people are not aware. Eelgrass forms dense underwater meadows in marine to brackish waters. So it's not found in freshwater, and it has a wide distribution throughout the Northern Hemisphere. So for example, it's found on these coasts up into the Arctic and even up to Iceland. And for these coasts and shorelines, it's the only native seagrass species, especially for Atlantic Canada, which makes our work a little easier. To give you an impression what this looks like, this is one of our study sites near Little Harbour on Nova Scotia's beautiful eastern shore., and it not only highlights the beauty of our shorelines but also the vibrancy and complexity of these dense underwater eelgrass meadows when they are in a healthy and dense and, yeah, full state. Eelgrass has long benefited the regions. The Mi'kmaq people have centuries of and millennia of relationship with eelgrass. More recently, settlers, as depicted here for Acadian boys gathering eelgrass on a Nova Scotian shore in the 1920s, have used it extensively as insulation in houses and also as fertilizer in the gardens. Apparently does wonders for potatoes and roses. Eelgrass provides a range of ecosystem and climate benefits, and we've already heard about a range of these for corals and mangroves. To start out at the bottom left, due to the complexity and density of the habitat, it provides foraging and nursery grounds for a wide variety of species. And indeed, when we snorkel and dive in these habitats, we see many, many different life stages of important species, especially the American lobster. Water quality is another factor. Seagrasses and eelgrass are especially, yeah, beneficial and able to absorb nutrients out of the water and filter the water by trapping sediment, which directly connects to the blue economy for the area around Nova Scotia and also worldwide in the sense that the seagrasses have the ability to improve water quality by up to 65% with regards, for example, to human pathogens in the water. This is a direct impact, for example, on blue economy, on shellfish aquaculture. But also the fact that eelgrass habitats host different life stages of commercially important species such as, for example, flatfishes, hake, lobster, and others that directly contributes to the local economy. To touch on the cultural significance, while the eelgrass itself is not of cultural significance, it does host a species that is of immense cultural and spiritual significance. The katakw, the American eel, which plays an essential role throughout its life cycles for the Mi'kmaq peoples of the Canadian Maritimes. Then erosion control, it has already been touched upon, is another important point. Through the sheer complexity and density of their habitat, eelgrass meadows are actually better or on par with many human-made systems to reduce and slow water energy and wave action, which is especially beneficial for sensitive and fragile coastlines. And it has been shown in scientific literature that erosion can be slowed 40 to 70%. Lastly, for climate change, seagrasses and eelgrass is known as a nature-based solution to climate change due to its capacity to effectively capture and sequester carbon. And it can do so about 30 to 35 times more efficiently than rainforests. On land, though it only covers much less surface in the ocean. However, there, after the benefits, there needs to be the depressing slide why we care and how this, these ecosystems are impacted. Globally, it is estimated that seagrass area is lost about 7% per year. This is a global estimate. We do not know the number for Atlantic Canada because we have no baseline where this habitat has in and how it's doing generally, which is something that we extensively work on. The main stressors, however, are generally the same as globally, and we already heard a lot about it. Climate change, especially the increasing temperature of the water for this cold to temperate species, is a big stressor. But also what we've seen are the direct impacts of the increased intensity and frequency of storms, which actually have taken out two of our main research meadows. In the past. Human activity is another factor. You can see in the pictures dredging and destructive fishing as well as anchoring can scar the meadows and open them up to destruction as well as extensive changes to coastlines, especially shoreline armoring and hardening that change the water flow and heavily impact the coastal areas. Invasive species is a big one. You can see here one of the main culprits for our areas that has been wreaking havoc in the eelgrass meadows here, the European green crab, which has been present for about a century and is currently being joined by several other invasive species negatively impacting the eelgrass. And lastly, as seen top left and top right, are disease and eutrophication, so increasing amount of nutrients in the water leading to overgrowth and die-off of the seagrass. To your, to your left actually is one of our restoration sites after the heavy fires of 2023. And to the right, seagrass wasting disease, which in the 1930s wiped out 99% of eelgrass along the eastern seaboard. The main challenge for us as researchers and as practitioners in restoration, next to the always present funding issue, really is policy and permitting, unfortunately. So really getting marine restoration in action going while well established on land, in the ocean, especially on the shorelines, has been severely lagging behind. However, there are some solutions and I like to title them connection through understanding. In our work, we apply a community-driven ecosystem restoration approach, which has generally been considered very effective and evidence-based. Through bringing people into the water and literally making them touch grass, this active participation has been shown to mobilize place-based knowledge and volunteer stewardship. And personally, I'm always amazed and astonished how excited people can get when they can be in the water, play in the mud, and plant eelgrass. This community involvement, and especially the work with indigenous communities and combining the indigenous knowledge with Western science known as or 2IC, seeing that we apply in our work. It enhances the sustainability of what we're doing, the cultural relevance of our work, and it fosters the education across the different communities. The Community Eelgrass Restoration Initiative, or short CERI, is hosted out of the Future of Marine Ecosystems Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. So just up the shore. And our main primary partner is the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq. We work knowledge-informed and climate-smart and hope to bring our work to people of all kinds of levels. Our mission is to restore and sustain coastal marine ecosystems and community stewardship because one does not work without the other and combine our science, the indigenous knowledge, and the public engagement to support the biodiversity, the climate mitigation, and coastal resilience and rebuild the damaged human-nature relationship. How we're doing this is shown here and it's a nice round diagram. I would lie if I would say this is as simple. It's usually more of a mayhem across all the fields. But starting in the red part, one of the main challenges is to find the eelgrass. Locally, generally referred to by fishermen as the green stuff. So we do a lot of looking around and mapping with advanced mapping technologies that we have developed.. And when we find the meadows, we document them and ideally keep an eye on them to learn about changes over time. That also connects to the second part. We measure the relevant parameters that are of interest with these meadows as nature-based solutions to climate change. Blue carbon stands out, but also due to, of course, the blue economy and general interest, marine biodiversity is a big one, which of course all connect to the general ecosystem health of these meadows. The restoration is the key factor of our work, and we have restored so far with 7 communities, with 5 more to come this summer. Actually, I just came back from one 2 days ago. And really bringing the people into the water and involving them in this kind of work is one of the central parts that connect to the last 2 points, which is the connection and the education. Getting the people in the water creates is the feeling of ownership, of care and stewardship, and doing so in any way, shape, or form, and with any player that we can get our hands on, from local landowners to community organizations to politicians. And we do that in any way, shape, or form we can, with a special shout out to our collaboration with artists, which has been amazing. So why are we doing this now? I am preaching to the choir here, but we are having more stressors on the coast than ever before. More and at the same time having increasing need and demand for healthy ecosystems. And people are becoming more and more aware of it. And I'm glad to see these kind of events from high-level to low-level people starting to talk about what's beneath the waves. And the key issues facing our coastal ecosystems are no longer a secret. So this general awareness is a rising tide that builds momentum for research in the sector, for community action, and for policy development. Though unfortunately the last one being rather slow and lagging behind the other two. This restoring of connection really is something that comes a lot up, a lot in our work. And as a biologist, as a marine biologist, I did not see that coming. But a lot of people who come to us and engage with us do so because they care. And it has been shown in the scientific literature that engaging in marine conservation or any conservation Conservation Project improves social and psychological well-being, and this volunteering, really the motivation that people, that drives people to join us, is largely stemmed from ecological anxiety and climate grief. So being part of a positive solution, however small, is a small remedy for these negative impacts. And personally, I always love to see the snowball effect this kind of work has with regards to eelgrass what we call our ecosystem gateway drug into caring about other ecosystems. And often I get emails from participants when they are traveling on vacation and they see mangroves or coral reefs or wetlands and are getting very excited about these habitats. So to steal the hashtag #GenerationRestoration, one of our main focal areas is working with youth, especially Indigenous youth youth as shown here. In collaboration with partners such as the Alnoweg Education Center, we are hosting Indigenous youth snorkel events and basically never miss out on an opportunity to throw people in the water and show them the eelgrass and just floating over these meadows. It's like flying over forests. The excitement that generates in people to discover what's underneath the waves is something that is incredibly special. And really connects people to this, especially as Nova Scotia is known and tagline is Canada's Ocean Playground. So we're trying to extend that into the water. And to conclude, I would like to present a quote from Trinity Nichols, a member of Pictou Landing First Nation, who we work with very closely. She says, our community needs to know what's going on within conservation so we can start it in our own community. It's like we can't become victims to environmental racism again, where we have the knowledge to stop it before it even starts. And even though it's not our fault, we're still restoring it. Willakliok. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Boda, for your presentation. I now give the floor to our seventh and final panelist this afternoon, David Smith, Director, Centre for Environmental Management Coordinator, Institute for Sustainable Development, the University of the West Indies. They are unfortunately unable to be with us in person, but we have a recording of the presentation regarding SIDS, climate risk, and blue economics. May I ask the Secretariat to proceed with the presentation?

Hello, everybody. I'd like to talk to you today about Small Island Developing States, climate risk, and blue economies— blue economics. Just to remind everybody that Small Island Developing States, there are about 57 of them worldwide, and 65 million people live in Small Island Developing States. We are concerned about global problems, For example, 6 of 9 planetary boundaries have been exceeded, and we're well on our way to exceeding the others as well, particularly ocean acidification. That's going to have profound effects for small island developing states. We're also very concerned about the very strong likelihood of a tipping point for low-latitude coral reefs, those are the coral reefs around the tropics, and what will happen to them as we continue to warm the planet when we go over 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees, and so on. One of the things to bear in mind as well is that unprecedented climates and climate change will happen first in the tropics, years before the rest of the world. So tropical and subtropical countries must adapt to new climate regimes. Our air temperatures are already higher, and so are ocean temperatures. Rainfall patterns are changing, major hurricanes are becoming more frequent, and the ocean is more acidic than it was. How does this affect blue economies? Well, it makes our blue economies exposed to climate hazards. We have high dependence on natural resources in the blue economy. We're talking about fisheries, tourism, and things like fossil fuels, polymetallic nodules on the seafloor, and the use of waves or other types of ocean vents to generate energy. We're concerned about managing migratory and straddling fish stocks and high-value fisheries such as lobster, tuna, and conch, as well as our inshore fisheries, and the need to manage large marine ecosystems that cover several countries. And we're also concerned, of course, about pollution from the land, particularly plastic and sewage. SIDS blue economies are almost completely dependent on natural capital. So beach tourism depends on coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and having comfortable temperatures. And we know we have to manage our water properly as well because it's finite and sometimes in short supply. So we have to manage underground sources and protect them from pollution and protect our surface resources and manage our watersheds, and of course address inequality in access to water. So let's talk a bit about that tourism dependency. Small Island Developing States are very dependent on tourism. Caribbean Small Island Developing States are among the most tourism-dependent economies on the planet, and the top 14 tourism-dependent economies in America a small island developing state. When confronted with this, economists looked at this and said, but our fragile economies need to diversify. It doesn't mean we shouldn't stop tourism. It means that we've got to do other things as well, strengthen what we're already doing, but adapt new strategies, new and broader economies, new types of business. However, one of the things that's very important to bear in mind is as well that beach tourism in small island developing states depends on healthy coral reefs, and yet these coral reefs are in danger. They could be eliminated even at global warming of as low as 1.5 degrees, and exceeding 2 degrees of global warming will probably drive the loss of 99% of reef building corals. So we're looking at, if we go above 1 degree, a decline in abundance, not of, but to 10 to 30% of the values of present day, and getting down to almost 1% if we're looking at warming of 1.5 to 2 degrees. So climate change, according to the IPCC, is going to affect our tourism. It will affect our housing, our infrastructure, water, health, agriculture, because of higher temperatures, drought, sea level rise, major hurricanes, and excess rainfall events. For example, in the Caribbean, we will experience reduced summer rain but increases in rain during the hurricane season. Initially, annual rainfall may not change much, but the pattern of rainfall will change quite drastically, and the effects on tourism will likely be negative. The effects on health will be negative. The effects on agriculture will be negative. So we're living in an island paradise, yes, but we have very little money available to conserve or manage our coastal ecosystems, and our infrastructure is highly exposed to hazards, which means that our potential for economic damage is extremely high. And if we've got a narrow economic base, if we get hit, our recovery is going to be extremely slow. An example of that would be after— in the Cayman Islands, after Hurricane Ivan hit. So this vulnerability, what do we do about it? Well, the UN has created a multi-dimensional vulnerability index. Let's just look at one of those indicators: low elevated coastal zones, particularly important for small island developing states. Because that increases the amount of things that are exposed to sea level rise or storm surge, as well as ocean acidification and the problems caused by ocean acidification and high ocean temperatures, such as coral bleaching. That means probably increased flooding, increased coastal erosion, loss of coastal habitats that are important economically and that might protect the coastline. This increases the number of people living in Small Island Developing States who are at risk. The location of important economic assets is also in these low elevated coastal zones. Hotels are on the beach, coastal roads literally run along the coast, and many of our airport runways are low altitude and beside the sea. Half of them are below 33 meters in height, in elevation, and many of them are beside the sea, only a few feet above sea level. So let's see, how does that play out when you get something like a Category 5 cyclone? In the particular case of Melissa, which had over 185 mph sustained winds, exceeding records of wind speed for Europe, UK, and Canada. Climate change increased the maximum wind speed by about 7%, increased the rainfall by 16%, and made the economic damage go up by about 34%. The storm intensified extremely rapidly and caused damage and loss for Jamaica alone of over $12 billion US, which works out to about $4,500 US per capita for the population of Jamaica. It's entirely probable that mangroves ameliorated some of the damage. So it's important to note that, and it's also important to note that we don't really have any data on the reefs and how they may have ameliorated damage, or in fact if they did at all. So where are we now? We know that Caribbean reefs are vitally important, but they are vulnerable. They're vulnerable to pollution, overfishing, disease, and tropical storms and hurricanes. This will likely reduce the resilience below global average thresholds, and it means also that managing coastal ecosystems is absolutely important, and if we're going to adapt to climate change, we need funds to be able to build resilient structures and also diversify and make more resilient our economies. So one possibility with regard to how we could manage beaches might be to increase the taxes and the rental to be able to fund how we can mitigate problems with our beaches, such as what you can see in this picture. But that might have negative effects on the tourism industry, even though it might reduce climate effects. One of the problems that we have throughout the Caribbean and also in Central America is how to control these large blooms of sargassum that have appeared on our beaches since about 2015 or so. That picture be— there is a beach. It's underneath sargassum, and the sargassum blooms are likely related to high ocean temperatures, increased agricultural runoff from West Africa and South America, and that means that the stakeholders are in more than one country, more than one economic sector, and in more than one social strata. That means it's going to be very, very difficult to stop the problem from happening. We'll have to deal with it on our end. It's not a simple problem. There are, however, some problems which may be less complex, such as coastal erosion. When the scientists named here started to look at this in Barbados, they found that many of the hybrid and green, for want of a better word, solutions worked better than the grey infrastructural solutions, especially when they were mitigating against sea level rise. Coral restoration was the least costly way of going about protecting the coast, but had the highest risk of failure. So they tried hybrid solutions. These were less risky and provided immediate attenuation of waves, and also were attractive because they attracted reef fish. However, their costs were much higher, somewhere between 80 and 450% higher than the gray just build a wall solutions. So money is needed for building resilience in small island developing states exposed to climate change risks. The problem with that is that to get that funding is difficult. The IMF, for example, indicated very clearly that funds need to improve access to funds, reduce their administrative hurdles, or as they put it, they're often cumbersome administrative requirements which limited small developing states the ability to meet the requirements. We also feel that there should be other criteria used for eligibility to concessional funds instead of GDP per capita. For example, let's use the Human Development Index, and let's also take the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index into account as well. Let's all remember GDP is not a measure of human well-being. When we look at information provided by the ODI, they indicate that resilience financing that's allocated to Small Island Developing States is lower than for other developing countries. SIDS get 7 times less finance than least developed countries, 11 times less than lower middle income countries, and 5 times less than the upper middle income countries. An allocation of climate finance is not linked to vulnerability. So how are we going to move forward? For a SIDS 2.0 with more resilient economies, we need to have increased access to low-cost financial capital, overseas development assistance, special funds, loans, and grants. Maybe tied to different criteria than the current criterion of GDP per capita. We need to be able to build human capital and create the means for economic diversification, adding other limbs to the tourism limb that's supporting the economics. We've got to conserve our natural capital, manage and protect vital ecosystems, particularly such as mangroves, but we also need to do more work on figuring out the problems of coral reefs and how we're going to be able to help them to survive in an increasingly hostile environment. We've got to use natural and hybrid means to build that resilience, help small businesses to access capital and reduce risk, and ensure that our infrastructure is properly built. But we've got to be able to do all those together. Thank you very much.

I would like to ask the Secretary-General to pass on our thanks to Mr. Smith for the presentation. The floor is now open for questions and comments for any delegation. I have Ireland on my list, so the first speaker is the distinguished delegate of Ireland. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon to you and good afternoon, distinguished delegates. As this is the first time we're taking the floor, we'd like to also join in offering our congratulations to you and your co-chair for convening us this week and facilitating this really important discussion, which we have found very interesting so far. And our question relates to, uh, Ms. Boder's presentation. Um, thank you very much for that, it was really interesting. And we have a number of initiatives happening at both a regional and national level on seagrass restoration, and we recognize the importance of this for all the reasons you outlined in your presentation. And our question relates to where you identified policy and particularly permitting as a challenge, and we'd be interested to learn more about how you see permitting as a challenge and if there was advice that you could offer us to take home at a national level on the permitting challenge in particular, to see how that can support the restoration of seagrass.

Thank you.

Absolutely, thank you for the question. So the permitting issues in question were for the Canadian context, but I— we were part of an initiative recently that published last year globally, actually spearheaded out of the UK by Project Seagrass, that identified permitting licensing issues as being one of the biggest hurdles to restoration in many different countries around the world. And indeed, this is what we keep hearing from our partners no matter where. And one of the biggest hurdles, I think, is the lack of prior example for these kind of things. Most government officials and agencies are not aware that underwater restoration or even coastal restoration is something you can do. And especially in our context, overlapping jurisdictions between different departments is creating a lot of confusion. And then lastly, just complete unfamiliarity with the species in question, I guess, shows a lack of, of prior experience with these kind of topics. So we are often coming up against a battle of, yeah, just not being aware what we are doing and then falling into the same permitting lines as building and constructing wharfs, underwater cables, or even offshore platforms. This is literally the permitting stream we are currently in. So, that not only slows down the permitting and raises a lot of questions, but also the timelines really don't match up. We are caught up in a process that often takes like 5 to 6 months, and it's grass, it grows in the summer, so we have to work when the sea season tells us to, and that often is not able to be expedited or special consideration. So we have been asking agencies for special— specially trained staff or even team members who are familiar with restoration projects, especially if they are across ecosystems. This is often something we work with, for example, with our land partners or with— we heard a lot about shellfish and reef restoration as well as salt marshes and trying to combine these kind of efforts has been very, very tricky. So interdepartmental communication and coordination is certainly something that we're trying to highly engage. And otherwise, yeah, really the openness to these kind of projects and enabling us instead of hindering us. So that has been one of the challenges.

Thank you, Ms. Porter. Any other delegations? While you're thinking, maybe I'll just ask a general question to our panelists. Sort of what are the biggest challenges that are hampering the efforts undertaken to restore the marine ecosystems? Is it primarily lack of funding or lack of awareness organizational challenges, local, national, or international level? So how do you see ways to tackle these challenges? And maybe are there any sort of improvisations in new technology that might help with this? Maybe we'll take Belgium, and then our panelists can think about this a bit. Belgium, please, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, sir. It was a question for Lorenzo, actually. I liked how you had to scale with the different spatial time aspect and also the distinction between policy and research, what you could do. I was wondering, there was one part where it was green where it said the breeding programs and that indeed you could have assisted hosts and symbiont evolution, but also try breeding them that they were more temperature resistant. How feasible do you think that would be on the short term? Is it also already something that is in development or just to get an idea of this. Thank you.

Please.

Thank you for the question, Jess. This, I would say that this is like one of the most exciting and rapidly moving part of research on coral reefs. There are lots of scientists working on this from you know, genetics, molecular biology, working with microbes, like doing probiotics, but also trying to find and generate the evidence for to see whether this is working or not. And the evidence is showing that yes, it might be promising, but it's developing. So there are a lot of research being done been conducted on this. And yes, it's promising, it's promising, but I wouldn't say that we are there yet, no. It's something that is moving.

Thank you.

Any other panelists that want to come in or address any of these questions? Please, Miss Bäuerle.

It's an excellent question and certainly something that I think goes through every restoration project is the thinking ahead and working climate smart. There's no point in restoring an area you know will experience sea level rise and warming and push the species outside of its relevant temperature niche. So yeah, same to what, what's been done for corals, we are trying the same for eelgrass, which is comfortable between like -2 degrees to about 20, 23, 25. But even in Nova Scotia, we're experiencing up to 30 degrees water temperatures now, which leads to die-off. So we have initiated several programs to study thermal tolerance between different populations and how it can be bred into the species. And I think the science is there. While the results are not quite there yet, there's a lot of collaboration between the sectors. And obviously thinking ahead with regards to having thermal tolerant strains of corals and seagrasses plays a big role. But again, this is also something that takes time, effort, funding, infrastructure, and money.

Thank you, Miss Bode. Any other panelists want to Mr. Voice, please.

Thank you, co-chair. I was just coming back to your, um, your earlier question of barriers to ecosystem restoration. And I think coming from a government perspective, um, I guess the— I guess like this discussion has been about the, the kind of the science behind that underpins it. I mean, making sure that we have robust data sets because, um climate impacts can be unpredictable and their impacts on ecosystems can be unpredictable, but they are themselves extremely sensitive systems, and the disruption of a habitat can have cascading effects which can be really hard to respond to. I'm reflecting particularly on the algal bloom we've been having, and I know this is an experience shared in other regions, but it's very challenging to combat it once it's begun. But separately, I think ecosystem restoration involves many different segments of society and bringing everyone along as part of that conversation, both industry, communities, for us Indigenous peoples, civil society, is an important part of that process. I was particularly taken by Dr. Hancock's presentation about kind of leveraging infrastructure projects for oyster reef seeding. I think that through kind of enabling that kind of enabling environment, we're able to kind of deliver a much larger scale. So this is something we've tried to do, we've done domestically through a conversation on our ocean plan, but I think that's a really important part of the conversation.

Ms. Bui?

I'd like to add to that a little bit. In the Gulf region anyway, we have a tremendous need for sand and sediment resources for the purposes of restoration, whether it's beach restoration or marshes or wetlands. And they're not— those resources are not always available at the local level, right? And so it's a real challenge to identify and find and access those resources from across a very large region. And so we have at the Gulf Alliance, we have developed an inventory or we are developing an inventory of the needs, both in the short-term, midterm, long-term needs of what's going to be needed across the region for restoration and matching it up with them matchmaking service, if you will, on the other side of what is available and where and when will it be available. These are dredged resources. These are— these are anything out there that can be used for restoration purposes that is of the quality that's needed. And this inventory will match the two together. So there's a challenge that we have faced and we're developing solutions for it in that way.

Thank you very much, Ms. Pui. Anyone else?

If I—

you, please.

Just to mention, and in regarding the, the most pressing issues, I would say that is, is not a— it's not for coral reef, it's not awareness because everybody knows about coral reefs and It was mentioned this morning. I would say that everybody knows the situation on them. But it's more like attention is moving away from the natural systems by different reasons that I'm sure that everybody here knows. And so this lack of interest in addressing the issues is is what is really concerning. And from the point of view of someone that is working in the field with people, with the natural systems, it's quite depressing to know, to see how the attention is moving away from our natural systems. And in this context, I think that Restoration seen as the only solution is my second concern because now everybody is saying we have lost the systems, we have degraded them, and now recover them. But yes, this is true, we should do this, but we should also pay attention on the, on the biggest issues and the main drivers that are causing reducing the damage. Because, you know, a restored coral or a restored seagrass, it will be also susceptible to climate change, to diseases, and to the negative effect of coastal development. So we need to work in all these aspects. And don't forget that we have different levels of actions to help the the natural systems. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I have a request from the floor as well. Please go ahead.

Thank you. It's— thank you, Chair.

Kim Friedman of FAO.

We have heard a series of insightful presentations, and they highlight a really strong community interest in and practical application of ecosystem restoration.

I just want to thank the co-chairs for convening the meeting and fostering the dialogue. Um, I just want to say, to date, much of the focus has been on centered on habitats such as coral reefs, seagrasses, and mangroves, as well as relatively fixed benthic systems.

While these are critical, I'd like to raise whether sufficient attention is being given to mobile components, as these also structure ecological function and contribute to carbon processes and ecosystem services. There's a range of evidence coming out that's showing the importance for ecosystem resilience. For example, the role of sea cucumbers in maintaining seagrass health, fishes as carbon engineers. And just last week we had a paper on dugong and their role in improving seagrass meadows. I just want to ask the panel of speakers if they also support delivery of a more integrated framing of restoration, one that explicitly includes mobile biotic components.

Thank you.

Thank you for your input. Do any of the Do any of our current panelists want to come into this discussion? Not at the moment. We will have more opportunities as well as, of course, your participation in the panel later in the week. Thank you. If there are no other requests for the floor, I think we have reached the end of our speakers' list for this afternoon. We will resume and conclude discussion under this segment tomorrow afternoon with 6 additional panel presentations. Let me, before I adjourn the meeting, check if the Secretariat has any messages for us. Please.

Just to remind delegations and observers that we do not have a meeting tomorrow morning. We will have the next meeting tomorrow afternoon from 3 to 6.

Thank you. Thank you. I wish to thank again all the panelists for the interesting insights they have shared with us and for the answers to our questions. Our thanks also go to all the delegations who have participated in the discussions. So please join me in thanking our distinguished panelists in the usual manner. The meeting is adjourned.