International
Tropical
Marine
Ecosystems
Management
Symposium

The first International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management Symposium (ITMEMS1), was held in Townsville, Australia in November 1998. ITMEMS was designed to complement the International Coral Reef Symposia (ICRS) by providing a forum for managers of coral reefs and related ecosystems to discuss issues and share experiences.

The ITMEMS1 Proceedings are somewhat unusual in form, reflecting the nature of the Symposium as a gathering of managers, scientists and stakeholders who met together to consider the management of Coral Reefs and related Ecosystems.

The first part is a formal report of an International Gathering. The second part presents the reports and background papers that were provided by the participants and which formed the basis of discussion for various sessions in the Symposium.

The third part contains the outputs of the cross-cutting working groups. These reflect the nature of the issues that the workshops were addressing and the variety of approaches brought by the range of participants with different perspectives and fields of expertise. We have not edited these reports for consistency of style and removal of overlap. We consider that the different perspectives and the ways in which they identify and express priorities are likely to be helpful to people seeking to design and implement support and oversight products and programs to improve the management of Coral Reef Ecosystems.

The report is thus a substantial document and, while it does not perhaps fit conventional expectations of the format of a report of a scholarly symposium, we consider that it reflects the present status of coral reef management globally and contains a very wide range of diverse information which is important in the consideration of the complex and interlinked issues of management of Tropical Marine Ecosystems. It is a reflection of the enthusiasm, commitment and effort of every one of the more than 300 delegates that attended the Symposium.

We have also included considerable information on the program and the operation of the workshop so that others who may consider organising a similar symposium can draw on our experience, learn from our mistakes and, we hope, profit from the lessons that we have learned in conducting this inaugural International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management Symposium.