Dispatches From An ICRI Meeting

Home again, home again after a week in DC for meetings. As I'm certain many of you have asked yourself, "I wonder what goes on at an ICRI General Meeting," I thought I'd provide a much needed service and give you a peek inside the inner sanctum of international coral conservation.

The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) is a partnership among governments, international organizations, and non-government organizations with the purpose of preserving coral reefs and related ecosystems. ICRI was announced at the First Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in December 1994, and at the high level segment of the Intersessional Meeting of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development in April 1995. ICRI was originally initiated by the governments of Australia, France, Japan, Jamaica, the Philippines, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Additional partners from governments, United Nations organizations, multilateral development banks, environmental and developmental NGOs, and the private sector have subsequently joined the original founders and are currently collaborating in the Initiative.

The organization I work for has been an ICRI member from the very start. Although ICRI is an informal and voluntary partnership where decisions are made by consensus, it still follows guidelines of procedure that look and feel very much like typical committee structure. ICRI has a rotating secretariat, a collaboration between a developed and developing coral nation with coral interests, and meetings are overseen by co-chairs from this secretariat. Until 2009, the ICRI secretariat is the governments of the USA and Mexico. There are delegations in attendance from departments of state or other relevant government departments as well as environmental NGO representatives and multilateral organizations like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The World Bank is also an ICRI member as it funds numerous coral reef conservation projects globally. Observers, that is non-members, are welcome to attend the ICRI meetings and represent NGOs, private sector, funders, or any other interested party.

When you get this many nations in attendance in one room and things are bound to get bureaucratic. And ICRI is no exception. Sure, all members sit around a collection of tables facing one another. We all have microphones and can comment on any part of the proceedings. Yet while conservation is the order of the day, it would be disingenuous to suggest that politics and personalities were not part of the order of business. The governmental delegations call a lot of the shots, with a decided volume of discussion emanating from the "power" nations--USA, France, Australia, Japan, Mexico. That's not to say that delegations from Indonesia, Palau, Netherlands Antilles, and other coral interests are lesser participants. On the contrary. But there's a certain, "Take it or leave it" feeling one gets when, say, the US contingent makes it comments. And while the NGOs probably collectively outspend all the nations combined on conservation, the comments I observed at this meeting tended to be more recommendations, advice, or support to national plans.

Like many large, intergovernmental efforts ICRI appears to be more potential than actuality. There are some very impressive outcomes that have resulted from this body (a global coral reef monitoring network, an international action network that links many different organizations, scientists, and tools, and a network to prioritize coral conservation in the Indian Ocean) but with this many nations around the table and in the face of such overwhelming coral threats it is baffling that funding for conservation remains a top-level problem among the nations in attendance. Still, that ICRI exists and continues (even with some dysfunction) is encouraging. I suspect that the next couple of years will be telling as to the efficacy and future of this international effort. The coral reef crisis has never been more severe and small island nations depending on healthy coral reefs will (and should) become the dominant voices at meetings like ICRI as they represent the front lines of crisis. How ICRI will respond, and what actions may result, could potentially determine the futures of reefs and the local communities that depend upon them.