Coral Triangle Center (CTC) hosted Wageningen University’s INREEF program for an intensive workshop and learning exchange from March 3-8, 2024, at the Center for Marine Conservation in Sanur and in the Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Bali. 

The INREEF program, led by Dr. Lisa Becking, aims to identify and create resources for assessing, supervising, and managing the resilience of MPAs with the objective of protecting coral reefs, amidst the varying pressures of tourism and climate change. The learning exchange and workshop in Bali provided a vital platform for engaging INREEF’s students, as well as Indonesian local stakeholders and partners, to exchange knowledge and establish the groundwork for future collaborations and collectively address the challenges of reef resilience in Indonesia.

The learning exchange consisted of a field learning trip to the Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area (MPA) to see firsthand some of the tourism and conservation activities particularly in Lembongan Island. The participants had a discussion with representatives from the Bali Province MPA Management Unit, local community leaders, and tourism operators to understand how tourism is affecting the MPA. The second part of the learning exchange showed water quality monitoring methods that can be used in the Nusa Penida MPA and also included a discussion on the various methods of monitoring biophysical aspects of MPA. Finally, the learning exchange held a symposium wherein experts shared lessons learned in managing tourism activities in an MPA. The symposium included presentations by CTC Executive Director Rili Djoahni, Maluku Portfolio Manager Purwanto, and Bali Portfolio Manager Wira Sanjaya, and Nusa Penida Project Leader Evi Ihsan.   

Spanning from 2021 to 2027, the INREEF program is composed of thirteen PhD projects and one postdoctoral project. The key question addressed in the INREEF program is how tourism, in combination with other drivers such as climate change, fishing, and pollution, will affect the ecological integrity, local livelihoods, and social cohesion of MPAs specifically in the Dutch Caribbean and Indonesia. 

To address these issues, the program uses a social-ecological-systems approach to sustaining the resilience of MPAs. This approach explicitly links the resilience of ecosystems to governance structures, economies, and society. Central to this endeavor is an improved understanding of the state of the social-ecological system of the MPAs in different levels of tourism development. 

The program works with a network of strategic collaborations internationally and across disciplines, incorporating knowledge institutions, government and non-government organizations, and even private sector entities including CTC.