Proceedings of the Hawai'i Coral Reef Monitoring Workshop

Proceedings of the Hawai'i Coral Reef Monitoring Workshop held June 9-11, 1998 in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The workshop succeeded in establishing a framework for a coral reef monitoring program for Hawai'i and enlisting the support of all key local residents and many of the top international scientists involved with coral reef monitoring. The approach used for the Hawai'i workshop may be useful for other regions desiring to organize their coral reef monitoring programs. In Hawai'i the workshop has already stimulated a greater degree of cooperation and teamwork in promoting better management of reefs, including the development of the Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (CRAMP), the Hawaii State of the Reefs Report (Clark and Gulko 1998), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sponsored Marine Ecosystems Geographic Information System proposal (MEGIS), and Hawaii'i representation on the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protects many coral reefs throughout Hawai'i and other U.S. areas in the insular Pacific as part of its National Wildlife Refuge system, and plans to adopt the protocols recommended at the workshop for establishing long-range monitoring programs for coral reefs in these refuges.