Bottom-up network of coral reef scientists in the East Asia: Its development and evolution-GCRMN East Asia Region and Asia Pacific Coral Reef Society-

Abstract

The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) was developed by the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) established in 1994 to collect scientific information to support coral reef conservation. GCRMN adopted a top-down system with a global coordinator overseeing 17 nodes that cover global coral distribution. In the beginning of GCRMN history, Northeast Asia node and Southeast Asia node were located within the East Asia region. Both nodes have fused into a single “East Asia Region” node since a joint meeting held in 2002. The network of this region has been reconstructed to recognize ownership of the region’s reefs as “Our Reef” and is building up a strong bottom-up framework for enhancing the initiative on coral conservation. The network has been attempting to adopt a formalized framework as the “Asia Pacific Coral Reef Society”.