June 29, 2020
David Obura is a Director of CORDIO East Africa, a knowledge organization supporting sustainable management and conservation of coral reef and marine systems in Eastern Africa/the Western Indian Ocean. CORDIO takes research to management and policy, builds capacity, and works with stakeholders, managers and policy makers. My primary research is on coral reef resilience, in particular to climate change, and the biogeography of Indian Ocean corals, and have worked extensively in coral reef monitoring. This work provides a platform for contributing to regional scale marine management: in the Northern Mozambique Channel to design and promote an Integrated Ocean Management approach that delivers on Blue Economy development principles, and for the Western Indian Ocean through building resources and capacity for integrated/marine spatial planning. Coral reefs are iconic and among the best-studied marine ecosystems globally, yet local to global pressures are decimating them rapidly. I am working on ways to bring this knowledge into practical frameworks to respond to local needs and national and intergovernmental goals, as expressed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.