Welcome to the ASCLME Project
Between 2008 and 2012, the nine countries of the western Indian Ocean region, including Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa and Tanzania, will work together through the UNDP/GEF Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems (ASCLME) Project.
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An ecosystem is a geographic area that includes all the living organisms (people, plants, animals and micro organisms), their physical surroundings (soil, water and air) and the natural cycles that sustain them. All of these elements are interconnected. Managing any one resource affects the others in the ecosystem. The ecosystem approach places human needs at the centre of biodiversity management. It aims to manage the ecosystem based on the multiple functions that ecosystems perform and the multiple uses that are made of these functions. The ecosystem approach does not aim for short-term economic gains, but aims to optimise the use of an ecosystem without damaging it. The ASCLME Project aims to implement an ecosystem approach to management of the LME resources through information-driven governance and policy reforms at the regional level, in partnership with the member countries and other stakeholders.
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"The organisation of this meeting was superb. The logistics that go into pulling a meeting like this together never happen by accident.
The mood of participants was extremely upbeat, supportive and encouraging. You can always tell the way a meeting is going by the tone of the questions and the questions raised during this meeting tended to be overwhelmingly constructive and well informed.
This project has made more headway in its first year of operation than any other project I’ve ever been associated with. What makes it particularly impressive is that this is unquestionably the most complex and arguably the most difficult project to come to grips with. The physical scope of the project not only covers a number of ecosystems, but a diverse array of languages and a broad array of socio-economic conditions. But if the collective tone of this meeting is an indication of how the rest of the project will go, everybody has reason to be optimistic and anticipate an outcome that we can all be proud of."
David La Roche, Consultant to the ASCLME Project on the 2nd Steering Committee Meeting.
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The ASCLME Project 
