ACAP’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group starts its 10th Meeting today, this time virtually

A Laysan Albatross tends its chick, artwork by Anne Lyon for ACAP, after a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

As for nearly all international meetings affected by the COVID-19, the Twelfth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC12) and of two its working groups will be virtual ones.  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 will precede AC12; SBWG10 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.

SBGW10 is being chaired by its Convenor, Igor Debski from New Zealand, with the support of Vice-convenors Juan Pablo Seco Pon of Argentina  and Sebastián Jiménez of Uruguay; the working groups full membership may be viewed by scrolling down from here.  Nineteen Documents (including an Annotated Agenda, SBWG10 Doc 02) and 23 Information Papers have been tabled for consideration, leading to a busy meeting over the three 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 lengths 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, 17 August 2021