Reef Life Restoration was honored by being invited to be a ‘Friend’ of the Global Island Partnership, GLISPA.
There are 175,000 islands on the earth that are home to more than 600 million inhabitants.
Islands and their oceans represent one sixth of Earth’s total area.
Islands support many of the most unique and isolated natural systems including
more than half the world’s marine biodiversity.
7 of the world’s 10 hotspots
10 of the 34 richest areas of biodiversity in the world
64% of recorded extinctions are on islands
Islands are on the front-line of global changes and feel the impacts acutely.
Driven by determination and necessity, islands are also spearheading integrated solutions.
Since launch in 2006, the Partnership has engaged high-level leaders to catalyze US $150 million for island action and assisted 35+ countries to launch or strengthen major sustainable island commitments. We now have more than 30 members and 37 friends as part of our island resilience movement. See our Impact Dashboard: https://impact.glispa.org
GLISPA is an association of islands around the world, led by the Presidents of Palau and Seychelles, Prime Minister of Grenada and Premier of the British Virgin Islands whose mission is “to promote action to build resilient and sustainable island communities by
inspiring leadership, catalyzing commitments and facilitating collaboration for all islands”
The coordination of GLIPSA Members,Friends and Supporters working together will help support the values of 1. Equality, all members are equal regardless of size, political status sector or role. 2.Trust – transparency in their interactions and assumption of good intent. 3. Collaborative – open, inclusive and respectful in approach and 4. Solution-focused seeking to impact through all their actions. This is definitly an admirable and necessary organization which we are proud be a part of and support.
Over two thirds of the world’s countries include islands.
“When you live on an island, climate change is a reality that you wake to face every day”
H.E. James A. Michel, president of the Republic of Seychelles and GLISPA Co-Chair
The challenge those of us in the Marine community take seriously is how to save the biodiversity that currently exists on and around these islands and in areas where it has been damaged. How can we rejuvenate and rebuild it making sure the 600 million inhabitants have a sustainable environment providing food, industry and income.
An invitation has been issued from GLISPA to the public and private sector institutions and organizations that support GLISPA’s vision to explore how they can best engage with the partnership for mutually beneficial outcomes.
As a new ‘Friend’ to GLISPA, Reef Life Restoration took a good look at our abilities and solutions. Our eco-friendly, advanced materials matrices, using nanotechnology and diverse mineral compounds create new restoration solutions for unique oceanic site conditions. We can apply our 20 years of published expertise and proven manufacturing systems of eco-marine structural restoration to restore coral reefs damaged by boats dragging anchors as well as damage caused by climate change.
Where natural resources are under pressure due to over fishing, our artificial sustainable reefs can help by rejuvenating the coral reefs (coordinating with coral scientists who have developed heat resistant corals) and attracting fish back to the islands improving the biodiversity.
The Western Indian Ocean Coastal Challenge states on the GLISPA website that “Tourism is the largest source of income directly linked to the coastal and marine environment, attracting 20 million tourists at a revenue value of US $6 billion for the local island economies.
