Understanding Coastal Change Toolkit Development Workshop

A toolkit for teaching coastal erosion is been prepared by the Micronesia Conservation Trust (MCT), the Pacific Islands Managed and Protected Area Community (PIMPAC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). These are the same organizations that prepared the "Adapting to a Changing Climate" Flipchart and Toolkit. This workshop is bringing together coastal experts to work with community members, Government and Non-Government Organizations to share information and experiences with coastal erosion issues. The outcome of these workshops is the development of a toolkit for coastal erosion awareness. The team of coastal experts and facilitators met previously in Palau and during this week, they met in Kosrae.

Workshop participants preparing a map about the features of a shoreline and the impacts of erosion and accretion.

Coastal engineers, Mr. Doug Ramsay from NIWA and Dr. Arthur Webb from SOPAC, were the principal consultants.  FSM PACC joined other Government and NGO's  to learn and share coastal erosion issues on Kosrae. There is a need to educate the people about what causes coastal erosion and what is needed to make us less vulnerable to its negative effects. Coastal erosion has been addressed by engineering projects, which are temporary solutions, that can cause damage in nearby areas. With tis toolkit on Coastal erosion, Government Officials, Utilities Companies and the general public will receive the information required for protecting our coastline, the people and the infrastructure.

The workshop was held the last week of January, with three days of meetings and one afternoon of field trip at one of the islands threatened coastline at Malem Municipality.  Funds for the workshop were provided by MCT, PIMPAC, TNC and the Coping with Climate Change in the Pacific Region Program from the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GIZ-CCPIR).

Field trip to Malem coast

 

Related information on blog posted on May 8, 2013. "Coastal Engineer Updates the Kosrae Shoreline Management Plan of 2000".