ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Indian Ocean Marine Turtle MOU – Meeting and Website

The third Meeting of the Signatory States will be held at the United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok, from 23-31 March 2005. The Meeting of Signatory States will be preceded, on Monday 28 March, by a meeting of the IOSEA Advisory Committee.

The national reports that have already been submitted by most the Signatory States will serve as a good basis for reviewing strengths and weakness in implementing and reporting. More time will be allocated towards identifying priorities for concerted intervention. The meeting is also expected to consider, among other things, progress towards the establishment of a network of sites of importance for marine turtles, preparations for a 2006 Year of the Turtle campaign, a proposal to review information on fisheries-turtle interactions in the IOSEA region, as well as policy papers on traditional and cultural use of marine turtles, and hatchery management.

The provisional agenda and registration from can be found in the Meetings section of the IOSEA Website: www.ioseaturtle.org. The website contains a wealth of additional information on marine turtle conservation activities around the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia region:

• the Online Reporting Facility has detailed reports from nearly 20 IOSEA Signatory States, which can be queried in relation to more than 100 activities, as well as threats and mitigation measures at key sites;
• an Interactive Mapping System (ImapS) includes three decades of nesting and migration data that can be queried interactively, and overlaid with information on coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass distribution;
• the Project Database now includes entries for more than 40 active projects and activities;
• an electronic library has valuable resource material, outlines of powerpoint presentations and other useful information;
• a new Flipper Tag Series resource contains details of tag numbers in use around the region, with a view to promoting standardization and eliminating duplication;
• the latest news headlines and features are added to the website on almost a daily basis; including preliminary assessments of the damaged caused to conservation projects and turtle habitats by the recent Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Source: Douglas Hykle
Co-ordinator/Senior CMS Advisor
IOSEA Marine Turtle MOU Secretariat
c/o UNEP Regional Office for Asia and Pacific
United Nations Building, Rajdamnern Avenue
Bangkok 10200, Thailand

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