24.09.2019 | From 11-13 September members of the Future Earth Coasts Executive Committee came together to discuss organizational matters and plan for the future of the Global Research Project.
The Executive Director of Future Earth Coasts (FEC) Dr. Sebastian Ferse and Project Coordinator Hannah Jansen welcomed the two co-chairs Val Cummins (University College Cork, Ireland) and Bruce Glavovic (Massey University, New Zealand) as well as Yongming Luo (Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), Xiuzhen Li (State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, China), Anja Scheffers (Southern Cross University, Australia), Robert Weiss (Virginia Institute of Technology, USA), and Heath Kelsey (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, USA), all representatives from the distributed International Project Office.
Over the course of three days the group discussed FEC’s organisational structure and used the valuable time of a face-to-face meeting to plan the next steps, projects and products. One of the 'big ticket items' is the next Open Science Conference called ‘Our Coastal Futures’, which will be hosted in October 2020 at the Gold Coast Campus of Southern Cross University in Australia. The conference is an official United Nation endorsed event towards the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (oceandecade.org).
Future Earth Coasts’ goal is to strengthen the science-policy interface and contribute to securing sustainable coastal futures in the new epoch called the Anthropocene. The project aims to connect researchers, practitioners, indigenous peoples, activists, businesses, youth, and decision-makers; build and bridge scientific, local, and indigenous knowledges; advocate for equitable and sustainable development; translate sustainability values and knowledge into action; and enable community resilience and adaptive capacity.
Find out more about the project here: https://www.futureearthcoasts.org/