Bertarelli-Annual-Report-2024-FULL - Flipbook - Page 46
Bertarelli Foundation
Communications Impact
The Marine Science Programme prioritises the need to share our
work openly across the scientific community, to management and
decision makers, and to wider audiences. In 2024, we brought
the programme team together in-person, focused our online
presence on new and growing platforms as well as
creating engaging, accessible content in
different formats.
2024 Marine Science
Symposium
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This was a gathering that really embodied our philosophy
of collaborative, interdisciplinary science with open and
generous sharing of ideas, information, and data. We
identified up to seven new collaborative papers as a result
of the meeting. Thanks to Dr Pete Carr’s early morning
birding efforts, the island we stayed on was declared an
e-Bird hotspot for the Maldives by the end of the week.
Overall the event was a huge success and highlighted the
importance of providing an opportunity for everyone to
meet in person, spend time with their peers and discuss
the diversity of projects.
s
Te
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ph
ot
o,
Dh
if
u
The third symposium for the Bertarelli Foundation’s
Marine Science Programme was held in March 2024
on Diffushi Island, Maldives. This was the first meeting
since 2019 and the first to be held in the Indian Ocean
region. It brought together scientists from across the
programme along with researchers from the Maldives to
share results and progress from across the programme,
work collaboratively on new ideas, and to create working
relationships for the future. Initially, scientists from
the programme shared results from research activities
from 2021 onwards (Phase II), with all 10 project teams
well represented. A series of participatory workshops
then developed new ideas for research across multiple
disciplines and geographies, focused on improving
conservation outcomes for species and habitats across
the Indian Ocean region.
Workshops discussed a variety of topics including
MPA planning around the Chagos Archipelago, island
restoration and rat eradication, illegal fishing in the
Indian Ocean, how the role of the wildlife observer could
deliver additional observations during fieldwork, and
community outreach and engagement.
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