A two day regional workshop on Harmonization of Environmental and Socioeconomic Monitoring in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Countries and Updating a Regional Monitoring Manual has been organised at PERSGA headquarter in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during the period 25- 26/02/2015. The workshop was attended by about twenty five specialists from the participating countries, as well as a number of national and international consultants.
In preparing for this workshop, PERSGA has carried out a study to assess the current status, needs and priorities of environmental and socio-economic monitoring and also worked on updating PERSGA Standard Survey Methods (SSM) Manual for Key Habitats and Key Species in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden which was first developed in 2004. The main objective here was to develop simple and usable monitoring techniques which are suitable forecosystem based management and involvement of the local community and the different stakeholders.
The workshop came within the implementation of component 3 of the SEM project, which is concerned with the environmental and socio-economic monitoring in the coastal areas of the region. The overall objective of the workshop was to discuss the PERSGA Standards Survey Methods Manual (2004) to identify a common goal for a regional monitoring programme and the priority methods for inclusion in an updated regional monitoring manual. The workshop provided the opportunity for the national consultants to present the findings from their reviews of monitoring methods and evaluation of the current status of monitoring activities in their countries in order to identify the strength weaknesses in order to assist the countries to enhance their national monitoring programs. The workshop was highly active and witnessed fruitful discussions between the participants drawing the basic outlines of the monitoring indicators that will be measured within component 3 in the remaining period of the Project.
