Updated_CRCP_Strategic_Plan_presentation

New Business Practices

• Coordinate all funding mechanisms and integrate products derived from them to achieve national program goals and objectives and support achievement of state/territory priority needs

• Implement a regular and formalized collaborative process to promote exchanges and feedback among scientists and managers in states/territories

• Expand ability to leverage funds and partnerships internal and external to NOAA

• Regularly track metrics, evaluate progress, and implement refinements to achieve program outcomes/goals.

Key Initial Strategic Planning Activities

• "Right-size" the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) for monitoring and product development consistency (Lead: NOS)
• "Right-size" Coral Reef Watch (Lead: NESDIS)
• Develop a new CRCP staffing plan based on a comprehensive staffing inventory of all FTE's and contractors supported with CRCP funding (Lead: NOS)
• Fulfill priorities within the pillars of work by identifying information gaps and implementing coral mapping inventory, gaps analysis, and updated strategy, as needed (Leads: NOS & NMFS)
• Implement new structure for grants and cooperative agreements to ensure funding opportunities are aligned to support the priorities of the updated strategic plan (Lead: NOS)
• Align international portfolio to support conservation of US coral reefs, and if necessary, refine decision criteria for capacity building for coral reef conservation in key international areas (Lead: NOS)

Draft CRCP Conceptual Model - 30,000' view

6 Steps for Effective Conservation Planning

• Start with a shared vision
• Prioritize relentessly
• Treat the problem, not the symptom
• Think it through before you jump
• Establish measureable milestones
• Check as you go - then adapt

Future Focus

Land-Based Sources of Pollution

• Deemphasize watershed management planning

• Emphasize implementing watershed management plans, narrowing the scope of LBSP activities to better address local management needs

• Assess the efficacy of actions to reduce LBSP

• Pursue collaborations and partnerships with agencies that have mandates to improve water quality and organizations with local presence to facilitate execution and local capacity building

LBSPs

Fishing Impacts

Future Focus

• Prioritize ecologically important and vulnerable coral reef fisheries taxa/groups, such as herbivores and spawning aggregations of large-bodied snapper and grouper

• Analyze the costs/benefits of herbivore protection and other management alternatives and correlations between ecological and socioeconomic benefits to inform targeted education and outreach to garner public support

• Use results of the MPA checklist to guide Program activities supporting MPA needs; for example investing in monitoring and assessment only in areas with active MPA management and fishing restrictions and focusing capacity building where there are known deficiencies

• Work with the four regional fishery management councils to identify a more targeted intersection between their priorities and the Program

Fishing Impacts

Climate Impacts

Future Focus

Climate Impacts

• Prioritize and identify ecologically important reefs using resilience potential (i.e. to resist or recover from degradation) and vulnerability assessments

• Build the capacity of managers to utilize tools/products that support decision-making

• Support the implementation of management actions identified using these tools

• Validate resilience-based management approaches

• Provide the Climate Early Warning System (including near-real-time SST products and seasonal outlooks) in the context of efforts to develop a [funding] mechanism for the rapid deployment of research, monitoring and restoration capabilities

Future Focus

Coral Restoration and Intervention

Coral Restoration and Intervention

• Develop and implement, in collaboration with partners, region-specific strategies to support restorations and interventions, such as piloting techniques (e.g. genetic, symbiont selection) to increase resilience to thermal stress and capacity building to implement coral restoration at scale that restores ecosystem function

• Develop standard operating procedures and explore funding mechanisms for rapid response to disturbances in the greater Pacific and Caribbean regions

• Apply restoration and intervention techniques in a resilience-based science and management framework

New Initiatives:

• National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study on coral interventions
• Coral Restoration Consortium (CRC)

Social Science & Socioeconomics

Social Science/Socio-Economics

• Enhancing social science capacity

• Improve data dissemination and integration

• Strengthen community-based management efforts

• Support global leadership in socioeconomic monitoring (SocMon & SEM-Pasifika)

Mapping

Mapping

Science to inform management

Science to inform management

Communications and

Outreach

Communications and

Outreach

Internal Funding and

External Grants

Internal Funding & External Grants

International Coral Conservation

International Coral Reef Conservation

Capacity Building

Capacity Building

Land-Based Sources of Pollution

LBSPs

• Reduce pollutant loading from watersheds to priority coral reef ecosystems

• Promote in-water management activities to restore priority coral reef ecosystems

• Build and sustain management capacity at the local level through local, state, regional, and Federal coordination of financial, institutional, and human resources

Fishing Impacts

Fishing Impacts

• Increase abundance and average size of key fishery species

• Support effective implementation and management of MPAs

• Increase stakeholder engagement and capacity to improve compliance and enforcement

• Increase public and policy maker understanding of fishing impacts and support for effective management options

Climate Impacts

Climate Impacts

• Manage for resilience

• Address risk and vulnerability

• Provide forecasts and projections

• Intervene to reduce climate stress and impacts

Monitor Benthos/Coral

Benthos/Coral

• Abundance and size structure

• Coral condition (e.g. bleaching, disease)

• Percent cover of benthic organisms/substrate

• Key benthic/coral species

• Benthic/coral diversity

• Rugosity

Monitor Fish

Fish

• Fish abundance and size structure

• Fish diversity

• Fish key species

Monitor Climate

Climate

• Temperature/thermal stress

• Vertical thermal structure

• Carbonate Chemistry

R&D

(improve restoration techniques)

R&D

(improve restoration techniques)

• Conduct strategic research and monitoring of ESA listed coral species

• Identify coral population enhancement strategies with greatest efficiency and efficacy

• Evaluate risks and benefits of other species interventions

Implementation

• Restore, protect, and enhance ecosystem integrity and function

• Build capacity for conducting effective active population enhancement

• Pilot more aggressive interventions

FY18 Internal Spend Plan - Strawman