Seychelles has officially become the first country to pilot UNESCO's IslandWatch programme, which aims to enhance ecosystem monitoring through a citizen science approach.

The launching event took place at Coral Strand Hotel on Friday in a two-day workshop with the participation of various partners. Participants include representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, the Blue Economy Department, the Department of Information Communications Technology (DICT), among others.

The IslandWatch programme will involve the use of digital technologies to gather and manage data, broadening its scope beyond coastal ecosystems to encompass biodiversity, freshwater management, and other environmental issues in line with national strategic priorities.

In his address, the Minister for Education, Justin Valentin, said that the workshop and programme show Seychelles' intent to research and use data collected scientifically for evidence-based decision-making and policy development.

"Far too much policy decision-making, in many instances, are driven by people or organisations with power, occasionally failing to consider real evidence. It is hoped that training people to engage with IslandWatch data, will alleviate that trend," said Valentin.

The IslandWatch programme is an extension of a previous one called Sandwatch, which was first launched by UNESCO in 2001, based on an environmental education experience in Saint Lucia, in 1998. It quickly expanded to more than 50 countries worldwide, including some small island developing states (SIDS).

Sandwatch provided a framework for children, youth, and adults, with the help of teachers and local communities, to work together to scientifically monitor and critically evaluate risks and challenges for the thriving of the beach environment, and then design and implement activities to address them.

The Sandwatch programme is now being relaunched as the IslandWatch programme with an initiative based on the lessons learnt, the acknowledgement of the need to better profit from contemporary digital and technological advances. It is also supporting countries in tackling challenges linked to new and arising vulnerabilities in SIDS.

The overall purpose of IslandWatch is to contribute to the effective implementation of the Accelerators Programme planned within UNESCO's SIDS Operational Strategy, especially as regards to promoting and enhancing environmental education, ocean literacy, coastal resilience and climate change adaptation.

"The Sandwatch programme has helped a lot of our students, where they were trained in data collection," said Jeanette Larue, the focal person in Seychelles.

She added that during the two-day workshop, participants will see presentations based on various areas of the programme, while on Friday, they will have practical sessions.

"UNESCO has created an App, which will be used to enter the data collected, which will then allow all involved to have access to it and help in research," added Larue.

The main launching of IslandWatch was made in June in Antigua and with Seychelles being the first country to launch it officially, others will join in in the near future.

Alongside Seychelles, the programme's pilot phase will also include Mauritius and Cabo Verde, with the first two building on a partnership with the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), which is currently implementing a large programme for coastal resilience.

IOC's work on the ground will allow the test of activities linked with the renewal of the content and methodologies, the training of the new generation trainers as well as the mainstreaming of IslandWatch into the national curricula.