A visit to the University of Mauritius located at Réduit was scheduled in our hectic itinerary in the afternoon of Day 5 and to say that the campus wasn’t grand would be an understatement. After having lunch we headed directly to the conference room where we met the different professors from the Faculty of Ocean Studies. The Dean herself Mrs. Nowbuth delivered the welcoming speech and gave us a slight breakdown about the university itself, the different courses that they offer and so on. Turns out that the Faculty of Ocean Studies is literally the youngest and smallest faculty throughout this whole university. Established only in 2014 with 10 full-time academic staffs, it has 3 departments which included “Marine, Ocean Science, Fisheries and Mari culture,” “Ocean Engineering and ICT” and “Maritime Trade and Finance”. All these courses in the several departments sounded very interesting and will surely without a doubt help new individuals in terms of supporting and protecting of the ocean economy and development as well as obtaining an economic income from the environment. Next up there was a short presentation on the #BEinternship pilot project by our very own Kalsey Belle. The fact that they were very intrigued and impressed by this program made us (the #BEinterns…) or the “Blue Economy Ambassadors “(as our name tags states) felt even prouder to be a part of the first cohort of this program. The presentation about Climate Change and Sea Level Rise by Dr. Khedun was very alarming. We learned about their different causes, its impacts and also ways of measurements. In some places things only seems to be going downhill and that’s why he also explained to us a bit about the different ongoing plans, procedures and demerits of the relocation/resettlements inhabitants in different SIDS and areas like Kivalina, Alaska. Just imagine waking one day only to find that you’ll have to leave your home and move someplace because and I quote “your country is sinking”. the end of his presentation he left us with a simple question that’s quite a thinker so I would like to ask you guys: “ What happens to the EEZ once our Islands disappear? ” …just think about it. Shortly after the presentation on Capacity Building in the Ocean Economy, We watched two videos, one about a Night-time dive, a mind-blowing project done by one of the university professors and his students. It’s to actually collect samples from the bubble that surrounds the parrot fish while they’re asleep. Did you know?
Written by Camilla Labonte
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January 2018
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