Stories and Solutions: GRID-Arendal Annual Report 2015

A Home for HOME GRID-Arendal is leading the development of a two-year Masters Programme in Holistic Ocean Management (HOME) with the University of Agder and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. HOME is intended to provide a place for students to explore and specialize in ocean governance while taking into account different social and cultural perspectives that influence how decisions are made. Graduates of the programme will have an ability to think and collaborate in a way that generates a more holistic approach to decision making than a conventional academic education can produce. Be ResponSEAble ResponSEAble – Ocean Literacy in the EU supports the emergence of an effective and dynamic European ocean knowledge system that contributes to raising awareness about everybody’s responsibility and interest in a healthy and sustainable ocean. The kick-off meeting was held in Plymouth, England in May and the project runs until 2019. Reports and Publications Tackling complex environmental issues means countries need new policies based on up-to-date and concrete information on the state of their environment, the threats they face, and how they can be reduced. This is exactly what a new report called Sierra Leone – State of the Marine Environment achieves, which was the result of the workshop held in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 2014. In this publication, Sierra Leone’s marine habitats, biodiversity, and physical and chemical processes are described and assessed. Draft online State of the Environment reports for Cote d’Ivore, Gabon and Congo have been produced based on a workshop held in Cote d’Ivore in 2013. GRID-Arendal has Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, President of Sierra Leone, in the Preface to Sierra Leone – State of the Marine Environment the causes and effects of such threats and other emerging issues. […] My government remains committed to providing the political leadership towards addressing the issues and challenges confronting the marine and coastal environments of Sierra Leone.” “The current SoME report is part of the regular process in assessing the state of the global marine environment. This assessment is also in response to the identified threats facing the country’s coastal and marine environment and attempts to address

Children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Photo: iStock/Abenaa

been developing an “expert elicitation” (EE) approach to gather the necessary environmental data for these reports. The EE approach is essentially a scientific consensus methodology, aimed at generating an assessment of any chosen set of parameters by synthesising information available in existing assessments, scientific publications and data in conjunction with the subjective judgment of experts across a broad base of evidence related to those parameters. A scientific paper is in preparation reporting on an assessment of the environmental status of the proposed Raet National Park, located in southern Norway, based on an expert elicitation (EE) workshop conducted during August 2014, facilitated by GRID-Arendal. The workshop was conducted using software developed by GRID-Arendal, which applies the EE methodology in real time.

Expert elicitation workshop hosted by GRID-Arendal.

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