As
part of the events surrounding the International
Sea Turtle Symposium held in Loreto, Mexico,
in January 2008, Dr Karen Arthur and Lilith
Ekanyake kindly organised a side-event
bringing together people interested in
turtle conservation in the Indian Ocean
and South-East Asia region.
Discussions
covered a range of topics, including ghost
nets and marine debris, networking among
genetics projects, sea turtle conservation
in Western and Northern Australia, the
Western Indian Ocean - Marine Turtle Task
Force, nesting beach surveys in Fiji,
and arrangements for next year's meeting.
More
»
The
International Sea Turtle Society convenes
an annual symposium to bring people together
to promote the exchange of information
that advances the global knowledge of
sea turtle biology and conservation.
The
29th Symposium will be held from 17-19
February 2009 in Brisbane, Australia.
This will be the first time the symposium
has been held in Australia, and indeed
the southern hemisphere. More
»
The
Sea Turtle Restoration Project is circulating
a petition calling upon the State of Orissa
to conduct to conduct a more thorough
review of the ecological impacts of the
Dhamra port project and urging the IUCN
to withhold support for the project before
an adequate environmental assessment is
completed.
The
petition circulated on the CTURTLE list
serve contends that the Dhamra port project
would create one of the largest, busiest
deepwater ports in South Asia approximately
15 kilometers from the famous Gahirmatha
nesting site where 200,000 olive ridley
sea turtles gather each year to nest.
More
»
FROM THE SECRETARIAT
This
coming month we will be preparing for
the first meeting of the Western Indian
Ocean - Marine Turtle Task Force, to be
held in Dar es Salaam from 27-29 February
2008. We will report on the outcomes next
month.
Concerted
efforts to encourage countries to share
information about their sea turtle conservation
activities are beginning to pay off, with
some interesting new information added
to the national reports of Bangladesh,
Eritrea, Indonesia and Iran, among others.
A round of thanks goes out to the individuals
who have made contributions to our collective
database.
Thanks
also to everyone who has responded so
favourably to the newly released IOSEA
DVD. We have begun to fulfill the
many requests received for additional
copies.
Finally
(at the risk of sounding like a "broken
record") if you are doing something
to help conserve marine turtles of the
IOSEA region, why not share your important
activities with a wider audience? Send
us a feature article suitable for posting
on the IOSEA website. We'd love to hear
from you.
MONTHLY ROUND-UP: What you may have missed in January
This
month we highlight an innovative, long-term
turtle conservation project in Thailand, never
before described in detail in the English literature.
More
»
The
13th (December 2007) issue of the NEPAD Coastal
Marine Programme Newsletter is available for
downloading here
(464 KB pdf), courtesy of the NEPAD-COSMAR secretariat
in Nairobi: http://nepadcosmar.org
As
part of the events surrounding the International
Sea Turtle Symposium held in Loreto, Mexico,
in January 2008, Dr Karen Arthur and Lilith
Ekanyake kindly organised a side-event
bringing together people interested in
turtle conservation in the Indian Ocean
and South-East Asia region. 
The
Sea Turtle Restoration Project is circulating
a petition calling upon the State of Orissa
to conduct to conduct a more thorough
review of the ecological impacts of the
Dhamra port project and urging the IUCN
to withhold support for the project before
an adequate environmental assessment is
completed.
