Tellus Supports U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and Sri Lanka Navy with the 12th Annual Indo-Pacific Environmental Security Forum

Tellus Civic Science’s (Tellus) leadership has supported the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s (USINDOPACOM) Environmental Security Program since 2016, including the organization of the annual Indo-Pacific Environmental Security Forum (IPESF), which is located in a different country each year. This year, the Sri Lanka Navy cohosted the IPESF in Colombo from August 14-17, with 135 participants attending from 28 countries.Tellus developed the events’ themes and agenda in close coordination with the Sri Lanka Navy and USINDOPACOM, selected the speakers, coordinated the workshops, and organized all event logistics. The forum themes were: 1) Climate Change and Security; 2) Maritime, Ocean, & Water Security; 3) Impacts of Urbanization & Land Security; and 4) Building National & Regional Resilience. The event included the official launch of the new Indo-Pacific Environmental Security Partnership (Partnership) website at www.ipesp.org, for which Tellus prepared the content.

Tellus organized a two-part classroom-based workshop to build climate resilience capacity of partner nations by training them on how to employ data science in climate risk management, led by Kalei Miller (Pacific Disaster Center) and Taryn Ino USINDOPACOM (Climate Change Impacts Program), and educating them on how to navigate the complex climate finance ecosystem, led by Dr. Valerie Hickey (World Bank) and local financial institutions including Alliance Bank, and TWC.The Tellus planning team organized two field workshops: 1) Mangroves and Measuring Blue Carbon for Resilience, led by Dr. Rich MacKenzie (US Forest Service) and Dr. Rupesh Bhomia (Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF), and 2) Coral Reef Science and Restoration, led by Admiral Piyal De Silva (Retired Sri Lanka Navy) and Dr. Adam Smith (Reef Ecologic).