Speakers

Mangrove cover and composition

Daniel Friess
Murphy Institute Center for Public Policy Research, Tulane University, USA

Dan is the Cochran Family Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Tulane University and Director of the Murphy Institute’s Center for Public Policy Research. His research interests focus on the benefits that mangroves provide, particularly blue carbon, human and climate change impacts on mangroves, and how we can use blue carbon to incentivise mangrove conservation and restoration. His research is conducted predominantly in Southeast Asia. Dan is a member of the IUCN Mangrove Specialist Group and the International Blue Carbon Initiative Scientific Working Group, and co-Editor in Chief of the journal WIREs Climate Change.

Virni Budi Arifanti
National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN), UK

Virni Budi Arifanti is a Principal Researcher at the Research Center for Ecology, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia. Her research expertise focuses on tropical mangrove ecosystems, wetland ecology, greenhouse gas inventories, and blue carbon, with a particular interest in carbon dynamics and nature-based solutions (NbS). Since 2022, she has been engaged with the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, serving as Indonesia’s Focal Point to the STRP and as a Technical Expert of the STRP for the 2023-2025 triennium. In 2025, she was appointed as a Scientific Expert of the STRP for the 2025-2028 triennium. In the same year, she also became Chair of the Indonesian National Committee for the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) UNESCO Programme (2025-2027).  

Coral cover and composition

Erica Towle
NOAA Office for Coastal Management, USA

Dr Erica Towle is a marine biologist who currently serves as the coordinator for the internationally recognised National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). As coordinator, Towle oversees the $6 million annual project. The NCRMP is a long-term, national-scale program to understand the status and trends in U.S. states and territories with coral reefs. Towle is in charge of facilitating and maintaining internal and external collaborations within NOAA, other federal agencies, state/territorial agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academia; providing technical scientific expertise on all coral monitoring program decisions; budget planning and execution of all monitoring missions and program expenditures; maintaining data stewardship, quality assurance and control, reporting, and data archival; and representing the program at meetings and conferences. Before leading the program, Towle was an advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (the Administrator of NOAA). Towle is the recipient of the prestigious NOAA Knauss Fellowship and served as a Fellow in the U.S. Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee for Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. Towle earned her PhD in Marine Biology and Fisheries from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and her research has been featured in National Geographic and The Miami Herald.

Narissa Bax
Pinngortitaleriffik Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Greenland Climate Research Centre, GL

Dr Bax is a New Zealand/Aotearoa-born marine ecologist and deep-sea coral specialist with a research focus on polar and subpolar seabeds and how these biodiverse environments contribute to the carbon cycle in the context of climate change (Blue Carbon). She provides technical scientific expertise to the GOOS Biology and Ecosystems Panel and co-leads the Coral EOV. Bax is specialised in the coral family Stylasteridae, contributing to the first International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species for Cold-Water Corals and the third Cold-Water Coral and Sponge Sub-Chapter of the next UN World Ocean Assessment. The IPBES and the IPCC have acknowledged her research, citing the Bax et al. (2021) policy-science collaboration for the protection of Antarctic blue carbon in their joint report before COP-26. She presented on blue carbon at COP-27 in 2022 and COP-29 in 2024 as part of a Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative delegation. In 2023, she was honoured to be included in a Powerhouse Museum exhibition as one of Australia’s leaders for 100 climate conversations and awarded the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS) future leader in deep-sea science Honorarium in 2022 and chosen as a DOOS Ambassador in 2025. She coordinates a sub-Antarctic eDNA study of giant kelp forests and a sub-Antarctic Blue Carbon and Natural Archives network. In February 2024, Bax joined the BlueCea project at the Pinngortitaleriffik Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, uniquely bridging the Arctic and Antarctic. Dr Bax earned her PhD in marine ecology from the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Australia. Her research has been featured in Oceanographic Magazine, The Conversation, Wired Magazine, Carbon Brief and Al Jazeera News. 

Moderator

Véronique Helfer
Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), DE

Véronique Helfer is a Senior Scientist within the “Mangrove Ecology” working group, part of the Research Program Area “Ecosystem Co-Design”, at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Bremen, Germany. Studying mangrove ecosystems since 2014, her research focuses on the understanding of how taxonomic and functional biodiversity (faunal, floral and microbial communities) supports ecosystem processes and services, in order to provide knowledge-based recommendations for the protection, (re-)establishment
and sustainable use of mangrove and other coastal vegetated ecosystems (CVE). She recently founded the Mangrove Traits Global Initiative (MANTRA), aiming at integrating functional traits into Blue Carbon and Biodiversity research. She is involved in several research and consulting activities on Blue Carbon and is running a three-years project to study the biodiversity-climate nexus in mangrove forests in India (thereby joining the Global Mangrove Alliance India Chapter). Véronique is a member of the Scientific committee of the PEPR (explorative Program of the French government) SOLU-BIOD for Nature based Solutions and Biodiversity, acts as ZMT’s spokesperson within the Leibniz Research Biodiversity Network (Germany) and serves as scientific lead of the All-Atlantic Network of Coastal Resilience Beacon Sites of the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA), aiming at scientific and local traditional knowledge- and experience-sharing for efficient management actions towards enhanced coastal resilience.
Véronique Helfer is also a co-founder of fairGROVE, a not-for-profit enterprise aiming at supporting (re-)establishment of CVE, as NbS for climate change-mitigation and adaptation, enhancing coastal resilience and biodiversity benefits for the well-being of local
communities.

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