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ISMI Trains 30 Officers On Coastal Erosion Management

By Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri
General News ISMI Trains 30 Officers On Coastal Erosion Management
MAR 19, 2019 LISTEN

About 30 officers from 12 countries in the Gulf of Guinea will be trained on new ways to manage coastal erosion from 19th to 22nd March, 2019 at Yapougon, Niangon in Ivory Coast.

The training which is organized by the Interregional Institute for Maritime Security (ISMI) seeks to empower high-level auditors, policy-makers, politicians and researchers to combat the phenomenon and its consequences through several regional and international organizations, NGOs and development funds.

Dynamic speakers with depth of knowledge of the phenomenon were from Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, France and the Netherlands, with the contribution of Deltares Applied Research Institute and the West African Coastal Management Program of the World Bank (WACA).

In a statement by ISMI, the coastal countries of the Gulf of Guinea are experiencing to varying degrees, an erosion of their coastline.

This includes retreat of the coastline, disappearance of wetlands and mangroves, impact on lagoon areas and many more.

According to the statement, this phenomenon, natural or anthropogenic, seems to be accelerating with a retreat of the coastline observed up to several tens of meters per year in some parts of the Gulf of Guinea.

It added that due to the concentration of population on the coastline, coastal erosion presents crucial challenges in terms of security, especially maritime security population displacement, food security, conflicts between countries sharing maritime borders, conversion to illegal activities has affected countries.

The statement noted that the international community must consider the issue and put in place management and control measures such as sensitization of populations and policy makers, observation, recording and analysis of geospatial data, prospective research, integrated and evolving coastal management and regional cooperation.

Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri
Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri

Editor

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