Governments meeting at the United Nations African Headquarters in Nairobi last week have agreed to the framework for a global strategy to stem the loss of our world’s rich biodiversity, alleviate poverty and fight climate change.

The discussions by delegates to the third meeting of the Working Group on Review of Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity have led to draft agreements on the strategic plan and on mobilizing financial resources that will be discussed by world leaders in New York in September, and later adopted by Governments at the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit in Japan in October.

The Chair of the meeting, Mr. Jochen Flasbarth of Germany, expressed his satisfaction with the meetings results: “The success of our efforts to save biodiversity requires a clear strategy and sufficient financial resources. The results of this meeting will send strong signals to the Conference of the Parties that the global community is ready to provide both. The spirit of compromise and willingness to work demonstrates that all delegates recognise that we have only one nature and one world to support our future.’

Read the full press release from: http://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2010/pr-2010-05-28-wgri-en.pdf

marinecultures.org, a Zanzibar-based organization, is pleased to announce their recently launched website, http://www.marinecultures.org/en/.

marinecultures.org promotes aquaculture development projects to support and foster know-how for the establishment of environmentally sound and sustainable harvesting of sea resources in coastal communities highly depending on fishing. The organization works closely with the local population and actively seeks collaboration within the fields of aquaculture and marine protection research. It is a member of the WAS, the EAS, SARNISSA (and of course WIOMSA) and has a good network of international aquaculture specialists, institutions and universities.

The project is looking for collaborators, particularly with knowledge of sponges in East Africa and in the Indian Ocean in general. Scientists, sponge farmers, aquaculture specialists and interested individuals are invited to contact marinecultures.org.

For more information, please contact

Christian Vaterlaus (c.vaterlaus@marinecultures.org)

A new collaboration between Norway and South Africa will collect oceanic data to help better understand and cope with the effects of climate change across Africa.

The Nansen-Tutu Centre for Marine Environmental Research was launched on 20 May 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa. It will gather information on the three oceans surrounding southern Africa — the South Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean.

The centre — a collaboration between the University of Cape Town Marine Research (MA-RE) Institute and the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC) in Norway — will carry out systematic and long-term measurements of the oceans. It will also develop new methods of data integration.

The research will focus on modelling the state of the oceans, the marine environment and ecosystems, and the relationship between climate anomalies in different parts of the world.

Read the full article from:  http://www.scidev.net/en/news/new-marine-centre-to-study-africa-s-climate-challenges.html

The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is announcing the following vacant positions to be filled for its specialized office IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) in Nairobi, Kenya, in the framework of the African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development project (AMESD).

Natural habitat conservation thematic expert (ref. ICPAC/AMESD/HR/2/2010)

Minimum MSc in environment, biodiversity or related discipline with specialization in remote sensing, with at least 7 years of working experience in operational environment monitoring programme, focusing on protected areas management and land cover change analysis;
                         
 IT expert (ref. ICPAC/AMESD/HR/4/2010)
                         
Minimum MSc in computer science or related discipline with specialization in system administration and programming, with 5 years of operational experience.
                         
Details of posts and contacts are posted on the IGAD website: www.igad.int <http://www.igad.int>(section Vacancies).
                         
Positions are open to candidates from IGAD Member States as well as from Burundi and Rwanda.
                         
Deadline for applications: Monday 14th of June 2010, 8:00 AM.

The Alaotra grebe is extinct, according to the latest assessment of the world’s rarest birds. The last known sighting of the bird was in 1985 and experts have now confirmed its demise, killed off by a combination of poaching and predatory fish.

The Malagasy species, which lived in in Lake Alaotra, is the first confirmed bird extinction since 2005.

Read the full article from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8702000/8702598.stm

Politicians won’t act to conserve biodiversity unless they have strong evidence that it is an effective strategy for combating global poverty.

22 May 2010 was the International Day for Biological Diversity. But planned celebrations were dampened by the news that the world has failed to meet its target to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss.

This target, set for 2010, was agreed by parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002 and subsequently incorporated into the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of ensuring environmental sustainability by 2015.

Later this year, political and scientific leaders at two major international meetings will face hard questions about why global efforts to stem biodiversity loss have not been more successful — and what must be done about it.

The first is the MDG review summit in New York in September. And at the second, the Biodiversity Summit scheduled for October in Nagoya, Japan, CBD signatories are due to agree a new set of targets — and hopefully a more realistic strategy for achieving them.

The failure to halt biodiversity loss does not reflect a lack of commitment by the scientific community. Over the past few decades, many scientists have spearheaded efforts to highlight the damaging impacts that human activity can have on our natural environment.

Read the full article from: http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/more-research-needed-into-biodiversity-poverty-links.html

A Short Communication on “Movement of sonically tagged bluespine unicornfish, Naso unicornis, in relation to marine reserve boundaries in Rodrigues, western Indian Ocean” by Emily Hardman, John M. Green, M. Sabrina Desire and Sydney Perrine has been recently been published in Aquatic Conserv: Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst. 20: 357–361 (2010). The abstract of the paper is attached below

1. The lagoon fishery of Rodrigues has considerable socio-economic importance; however, catches have declined by 50% in recent years. The bluespine unicornfish, Naso unicornis (Forsska˚ l 1775) is an important component of the fishery.

2. To begin to assess whether marine reserves might benefit this species, sonic telemetry was used to track individual fish in one of Rodrigues’ four marine reserves. Seven unicornfish were caught in the Grand Bassin reserve and tagged with abdominally implanted acoustic tags.

3. Over a period of 57 days their locations were determined up to 21 times using a hand held hydrophone and receiver. Individual minimum convex polygon (MCP) home ranges varied from ~10 000m² to~274 000m² and were not correlated with fish size. Kernel estimates of core areas (50% utilization distribution) varied from ~5000m² to ~175 000m². All seven fish stayed within the marine reserve and the largest home range occupied less than ~2% of the area of the marine reserve.

4. Fish remained on the outside edge of the lagoon on the shallow reef slope and among coral patches. These findings suggest that bluespined unicornfish biomass and numbers should increase if the Grand Bassin marine reserve is closed to fishing. Long-term monitoring will, however, be required to demonstrate this outcome.

This study was partially funded through WIOMSA’s MARG I grant.

A paper on “Impacts of artisanal fishing on key functional groups and the potential vulnerability of coral reefs” by Jerker Lokrantz, Magnus Nystrom, Albert V. Norstrom, Carl Folke and Joshua E. Cinner, has been published in Environmental Conservation 36 (4): 327–337. The summary of the paper is attached below:

Fishing can have major impacts on the structure of coral reef ecosystems. Overfishing of herbivores is particularly detrimental, as it makes the coral system more likely to undergo shifts to macroalgal dominance in the event of coral mass mortality. Knowing when important processes, such as herbivory, are becoming brittle is important because it can provide an opportunity for managers to avoid undesirable ecosystem-level changes. This study investigates the impact of artisanal fishing on three important functional groups of herbivores (grazers, scrapers and excavators) on five coral-dominated reefs outside Zanzibar (Tanzania). There was a negative correlation between fishing pressure and fish biomass, abundance, diversity and species richness. Moreover, fishing had a negative influence on the demographic structure of functional groups, particularly excavators, manifesting itself as a skewness towards smaller individuals within populations. Artisanal fishing can have significant impacts on key functional groups of herbivorous reef fishes which may increase the vulnerability of coral reefs to undesirable ecosystem shifts.

Migration redefined? Seasonality, movements and group composition of humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae off the west coast of South Africa – J Barendse, PB Best, M Thornton, C Pomilla, I Carvalho and HC Rosenbaum
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3466> 

Life-history parameters of white stumpnose Rhabdosargus globiceps (Pisces: Sparidae) in Saldanha Bay, South Africa, with evidence of stock separation – CG Attwood, TF Næsje, L Fairhurst and SE Kerwath
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3467> 

Life-history strategies of Umbrina robinsoni (Sciaenidae) in warm-temperate and subtropical South African marine reserve – K Hutchings and MH Griffiths
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3468> 

Exploring basic biochemical constituents in the body tissues of South African abalone Haliotis midae reared in shore-based mariculture systems – A Laas and A Vosloo
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3469> 

Contribution by microbes to the foodweb of a mangrove biotope: the approach of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes – MA Nabeel, K Kathiresan, N Rajendran, H Ohnishi, H Hamaoka and K Omori
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3470> 

First Lagrangian ROMS-IBM simulations indicate large losses of chokka squid Loligo reynaudii paralarvae from South Africa’s Agulhas Bank – MJ Roberts and C Mullon
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3471> 

Distribution patterns of striped mullet Mugil cephalus in mangrove creeks, Zanzibar, Tanzania – AW Mwandya, YD Mgaya, MC Öhman, I Bryceson and M Gullström
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3472> 

Buoyancy-stirring interactions in a subtropical embayment: a synthesis of measurements and model simulations in Maputo Bay, Mozambique – JD Lencart e Silva, JH Simpson, AM Hoguane and JL Harcourt-Baldwin
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3473> 

First report of from Africa and its effect on mussel hosts – JL Ruesink and AC Trimble
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3474> 

Vertical distribution of small pelagic fish eggs and larvae on the eastern Agulhas Bank, South Africa – W Osman, CL Moloney and CD van der Lingen
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3475> 

Patterns of diversity along experimental gradients of disturbance and nutrient supply – the confounding assumptions of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis – MC Pfaff, C Hiebenthal, M Molis, GM Branch and M Wahl
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3476> 

A simple method for rapid estimation of Ecklonia maxima and Laminaria pallida biomass using floating surface quadrats – MD Rothman, RJ Anderson, JJ Bolton, CJT Boothroyd and FA Kemp
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3477> 

Coastal currents and temperatures along the eastern region of Algoa Bay, South Africa, with implications for transport and shelf-bay water exchange – MJ Roberts
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3478> 

Short Communication

A near mass stranding of cetaceans in St Helena Bay, South Africa – PB Best and D Reeb
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3479> 

Short Communication

False killer whale Pseudorca crassidens mass stranding at Long Beach on South Africa’s Cape Peninsula, 2009 – SP Kirkman, MA Meÿer and M Thornton
View Abstract <http://www.nisc.co.za/oneAbstract.php?absId=3480>

Following our email of 13 May 2010, regarding the side-event on “Building partnerships to improve the management of coastal and marine ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean”, the Nairobi Convention Secretariat is pleased to share with you the presentations that were discussed during the side event.

The side-event which was held during the Fourteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 14) at UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya on 14 May 2010 was organized by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in partnership with the Nairobi Convention.

Dr. Julius Kipng’etich, Director, Kenya Wildlife Service chaired the session.

The objective of the event was to showcase coastal and marine initiatives and collaboration between national, regional and international organizations in the Western Indian Ocean region.

The presentations included;

• ‘Climate change, coral reefs, and livelihoods in the Western Indian Ocean’ by Tim McClanahan, Wildlife Conservation Society.  
• ‘Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) Initiatives on Science and Capacity Development in the Western Indian Ocean region’ by Nirmal Shah, WIOMSA; and
• Status of Coral Reefs in the Marine Protected Areas in Kenya: A Review from 25 years of Monitoring’ by Mohamed Omar, Kenya Wildlife Services;

The presentations can also be found on our website at: http://www.unep.org/NairobiConvention/Information_Center/Side_Event_Coastal&Marine.asp