This month’s e-News comes to you from Rome, Italy, where the Ninth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) is being held. The Coordinator is helping colleagues from the CMS Secretariat “behind the scenes” to facilitate the conduct of this large meeting, which continues through 5 December.

In his role as Senior CMS Advisor, Douglas Hykle has been assisting with several other CMS issues of late, mostly unrelated to marine turtles – notably, representation at a meeting in Seychelles to consider the creation of a cetacean and dugong conservation network among island nations of the Western Indian Ocean; discussions on the establishment of a new office in Abu Dhabi to service various CMS species agreements; and serving on a committee to review offers to host a secretariat for the East Asian Australasian Flyway (EAAF) Partnership. The latter follows his participation at the Ramsar (Convention on Wetlands) COP10 and the EAAF Meeting of Partners in Korea in October, on behalf of CMS. These interesting diversions are part of the arrangement whereby CMS contributes to a portion of the IOSEA Secretariat’s operating costs.

While in Seychelles, the Coordinator worked with counterparts in the secretariat of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to prepare an “Executive Summary” on marine turtles, which will be presented to the IOTC’s Scientific Committee in early December. Essentially a briefing note on the status of available information on marine turtles and fisheries interactions in the Indian Ocean, this is an important preliminary step in forging closer collaboration between IOSEA and IOTC.

While in Seychelles, Vijay Mangar (Mauritius) reported that the IOSEA educational DVD has received a terrific reception in his country, having been widely diffused as a Public Service Announcement on the national TV network. This encouraging news dovetails with complimentary feedback received independently from a Mauritian schoolteacher who has used the DVD as an educational tool. Free copies of the DVD are still available in English and French by writing to the Secretariat.

While we await printing of physical copies of the Report of the Fifth Meeting of the Signatory States, the final report of the meeting has been posted in full on the IOSEA Website (under IOSEA Meetings). The text still contains a “draft” annotation, in case any minor changes are necessary during the printing process. In any case, it is expected that copies of the report will be circulated before the end of the year.

Recently the Secretariat has been exploring the possibility of organising a Strategic Planning Session on the future development of the IOSEA MoU, in conjunction with the forthcoming International Sea Turtle Symposium in Brisbane, next February. An update on how this plan is progressing will be provided next month.

As previously announced, a workshop looking into the problem of turtle bycatch in coastal fisheries will be organised in Honolulu, Hawaii, in January 2009. Despite encouragement on several occasions for greater Indian Ocean representation, participation from our region looks to be rather limited. Nevertheless, the Coordinator and IOSEA Advisory Committee member Bundit Chokesanguan will be participating.

Bangkok has been in the international media for the past several weeks and months and, as this note is being written, the tension in the city is mounting. While the Secretariat has been able to function more or less continuously during this difficult period, the ongoing situation has begun to disrupt normal life and there is a growing risk of becoming caught up in a serious conflict. The closure of both of the airports serving Bangkok poses an immediate challenge for the Coordinator’s return to Thailand at the end of the current CMS meeting, but hopefully cooler heads will prevail so that the standoff can be resolved peacefully. We’ll keep you posted if our activities look to be interrupted for a longer period of time.