Press Release from Tadashi KIMURA, GCRMN East Asia regional coordinator.

GCRMN East Asia organized an online workshop on 21^st December 2021 for the launch of their regional report 2020 titled “Status and Trends of East Asian Coral Reefs”.

Karenne Tun and Tadashi Kimura, GCRMN East Asia regional coordinators, invited 37 participants including GCRMN national coordinators of 14 countries and states (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), regional experts and David Souter, a global coordinator of GCRMN.

GCRMN East Asia has been undertaking a meta-analysis of monitoring data provided by member countries from the region since 2017: The Status and Trends of East Asian Coral Reefs 2020 is the final product of this analysis. Although the region provided monitoring data for the Sixth GCRMN Status of Coral Reefs of the World Report: 2020, this report provides results in regional detail, highlighting the regional status and trends of East Asian reefs, accompanied by descriptions at the national level.

During the workshop, a digital version of the regional report was launched. Each national chapter of the report was presented by the national coordinator to share and discuss the findings. The report will be disseminated throughout the region and shared amongst global audiences in early 2022, and will be hosted on the GCRMN website.

The regional workshop and report were conducted by GCRMN East Asia regional and national coordinators with technical support from the National University of Singapore.