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A Northern Giant Petrel broods its chick, watercolour by Shary Page Weckwerth for ACAP; after a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson
As for nearly all international meetings affected by COVID-19, the Twelfth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC12) and of two of its working groups are being held virtually; a first for ACAP. This year’s meetings - delayed from last year by the pandemic - are now being held from 16/17 August to 1/2 September (depending on where you are in the world). Meetings of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group and the Population and Conservation Status Working Group are preceding AC12; SBWG10 (which has already met) from 16/17 to 18/19 August, and PaCSWG6 from 23/24 to 24/25 August. AC12 will meet from 30/31 August to 1/2 September.
PaCSWG6 is being chaired by its Co-convenors, Marco Favero from Argentina and Patricia Serafini from Brazil, with the support of Vice- Convenor Richard Phillips (UK). The working group’s full membership and Terms of Reference may be viewed by scrolling down from here. Four Documents (including a Draft Meeting Agenda, PaCSWG 6 Doc 01 Rev. 1) and 22 Information Papers have been tabled for consideration, leading to an expected busy meeting over the two days allotted. All these documents can be downloaded from this website but note that some are password protected and so only their abstracts are available to be read.
Further information is available in AC12 Circular 5 in the three official ACAP languages of English, French and Spanish on timing at different localities and lengths of the three meetings. Congress Rental has been chosen to manage the technical aspects of the meeting, using the Interprefy platform. Interprefy enables “relay interpretation” (involving multiple languages – three in the case of ACAP). Congress Rental is providing technical advice to Chairs, Convenors, Secretariat, interpreters and to other participants.
John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 August 2021