In collaboration between the Faculty of Marine Sciences and Fisheries at the Red Sea University, the Ministry of Environment Tourism and Wildlife in the Red Sea state and the Regional Organization for the Conservation of Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (PERSGA) a national workshop has been conducted for Dissemination of Monitoring Information to the Decision Makers. The workshop took place on Sunday December 11th 2016; at Al-Khabeer conference hall � Red Sea University. It comes within the framework of the implementation of environmental and socioeconomic monitoring activities in Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island protected area, under the third component of the regional project "Strategic ecosystem-based management of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden" SEM project, implemented by the PERSGA in collaboration with the World Bank and funded by the Global Environment Facility �GEF�. The workshop aimed at enlightening decision makers about the results based on findings of the first year of environmental and socioeconomic monitoring during the period October 2015- October 2016. The strategic goal of the workshop was to come up with recommendations for utilizing these results in the decision making process and ensuring the sustainability of the monitoring activities.
About 40 participants representing various authorities, agencies and organizations concerned with conservation of the coastal and marine environment in addition to a large number of decision-makers and beneficiaries from the local community of Dungonab and Mukkawar Island MPA participated in the workshop. Six main themes representing the environmental and socioeconomic monitoring activities in Dungonab and Mukkawar Island MPA were addressed, namely: Monitoring for the purpose of ecosystem � based management in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, marine fisheries monitoring, monitoring of coastal and marine habitats, water quality monitoring, monitoring of marine litter and socio-economic monitoring.
At the end of the workshop the participants came out with a set of recommendations including:
? The Red Sea State Government, the Federal Ministry of Environment and other concerned Administrations adopt supporting and funding coastal environmental monitoring studies in Sudan after the end of the SEM Project,
? Parts of the budgets of the relevant Government Administrations should be allocated for cleanup of beaches and the conservation of the marine and coastal environment.
? Searching for alternative activities such as mining, grazing and eco-tourism that would relief the pressure off marine and coastal resources
? Regional coordination concerning fisheries management; particularly grouper, and control fisheries export during the breeding season between May and August.
? Summarizing the workshop outputs in the form of leaflets carrying short messages targeting local community; in order to raise environmental awareness among them.
