1. he Eye on Oceans and Blue Carbon Special Initiative was formed during the 2011 Eye on Earth
Summit and has grown to a membership of over 70 stakeholders with a broad geographic
representation across the globe and good gender balance. All other SI facilitators and several
stakeholders also have membership to increase cross-SI opportunities.
Recently, Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager (jglavan@ead.ae) was assigned to be the new
facilitator of the SI. There is no consensus chair within the SI as it is decided upon on a rotating
basis. This provides the community equal opportunity to help support and guide the direction of the
monthly meeting so that it best addresses the community needs.
The SI meets via Webex on a monthly basis based on the best availability of the community. A shared
community area was created on Basecamp where the community can share documents, discussions
as well as post potential funding opportunities and conference presentations. The Portal is kept up
to date by the community as well as by the SI Facilitator.
KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI
ANUPDATE:OCTOBER2014
T
O&BC SI AT A GLANCE
Formation Eye on Earth Summit 2011
Membership 70 international stakeholders
Chair Chair appointed on a rotating basis
Steering Committee under development
Meetings via Webex each month, subject to availability of the community
(Basecampportalcreatedforsharingofdocuments,discussions,
funding opportunities and conference presentations)
Facilitator Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager - jglavan@ead.ae
STRUCTURE AND GOVERNANCE
MISSION STATEMENT
The Eye on Oceans and Blue Carbon SI focuses on collecting data on coastal and oceans
ecosystems and making them useful in the context of management for climate change mitigation
as well as maintenance of ecosystem services valuable to coastal communities. The SI explores
methodologies for collecting appropriate data sets, structures for managing the data-sets and
vehicles such as policy or natural resource management tools for making these data useful to
decision-making and management of coastal ecosystems for climate change mitigation and
ecosystem services.
The community, in its upcoming coordination meeting, will be heavily revising and refreshing
its mission, vision and outcome statements so that it is more niche driven as well as for further
incorporation of oceans key issues.
ANUPDATE:OCTOBER2014

2. CURRENT PROJECTS
The community is currently developing project
fiches and concept proposals for potential funding
opportunities, with deliverables identified to be
showcased at the Eye on Earth Summit 2015.
A previous project of the SI is the Abu Dhabi Blue
Carbon Demonstration Project.
The project set out to improve our understanding of
coastal ecosystems and how they help to sequester
carbon and provide valuable services to coastal
communities. Locally, enhanced local capacity to
measure and monitor carbon in coastal ecosystems,
and incorporated the data in policy making for
sustainable preservation of these environments.
As being a GEF Blue Forests 100% co-financed
intervention site, the Project aspires to guide other
Blue Carbon initiatives to develop the science and
data management tools, creating a sophisticated
methodology for continuing the preservation of blue
carbon habitats.
ThesynergiesbetweentheDemonstrationproject,the
Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon and Associated Ecosystem
Services Phase II and the GEF Blue Forests project
have been enhanced through pollination of cross
project opportunities.
UPCOMING MEETINGS AND
WORKSHOPS
Planning is being undertaken to undertake the
first coordination meeting for the SI, taking place
in Abu Dhabi, November 2014. The coordination
meeting will have the community refresh our vision,
outcome and mission statement in a participatory
approach so that it best reflects the needs of the
community and the niche where there is most need.
FUTURE PROJECT PLANS
The community is currently looking towards creating
its SI vision statement, direct feedback mechanisms
into the summit, as well as coming together as
a community to prepare both project fiches and
concept notes.
CROSS SI OPPORTUNITIES
There are critical links with the foundational SIs as
they support direct areas which closely touch upon
challenges we face such as incentivizing data sharing
and knowledge dissemination. There are also obvious
touch points with each of the other SIs, including
Biodiversity, CSR and Disaster Management.
PHOTO CREDIT: ROB BARNES (GRID-ARENDAL) / AGEDI
KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI