The first Biennial Conference took place in Tabarka, Tunisia, from the 12th to the 14th October 2009. The organisation of this Conference came from a need expressed by several scientist of the region which the ACCOBAMS Secretariat strove to fill with the support of its Partners.The first edition of the Conference was organised in collaboration with the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (MAP/UNEP).
A total of 51 participants from 9 different Countries took part to the Conference to assess the knowledge acquired on cetaceans in the South and East of the Mediterranean, identify potential gaps and stimulate the development of conservation actions in order to promote the implementation of the ACCOBAMS Agreement. This Conference allowed cetacean specialists, active in the South of the Mediterranean, to exchange their experience and data and to discuss the best approaches and priority actions for a better knowledge on cetacean populations in this region where data still remain sporadic and scarce.
The Conference was organised over 4 sessions of oral presentations, one session of Poster presentations, one round table and one workshop on photo-identification techniques for cetacean studies conducted by Alnitak, an ACCOBAMS Partner since 2007.
The Proceedings of the Conference will consist of two documents:
- The Book of Abstracts
- The Proceedings of the Conference which will include the oral communication papers, the poster presentation papers and
the conclusions and recommendations issued from the sessions and from the round table.
The Ukrainian and Russian versions of the Black Sea Conservation Plan are online in the "official documents". Download it!
The joint workshop IWC-ACCOBAMS on reducing collisions between vessels and marine cetaceans will take place in Beaulieu from the 21th to the 24th of September, 2010.
Waves of Life is a newly produced environmental documentary of one hour focusing on Mediterranean biodiversity, the 2010 target and gives particular weight to cetaceans and their conservation needs. Waves of Life was produced in English and Maltese by the NGO, BICREF (The Biological Conservation Research Foundation) in Malta.
The ACCOBAMS Permanent Secretariat is pleased to announce that
The list of the Cetacean Stranding Coordinators in the ACCOBAMS area is online.