The Fifth Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MoP5) to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) will be held at the Iberostar Grand Hotel Mencey in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain from 4 – 8 May 2015.

Key dates for MoP5

5 Dec 2014:  Submission of proposed amendments to the Agreement.

2 Jan 2015:  The Advisory Committee’s report on progress with implementation of the Agreement circulated to Parties.

The Advisory Committee’s report on its activities circulated to Parties

3 Feb 2015:  Submission date for meeting documents requiring translation.

Submission date for applications from observers representing international organisations.

4 Mar 2015:  Parties’ comments on proposals to amend the Agreement or its Annexes submitted to Secretariat.

Meeting working documents distributed in the three official languages.

Submission date for information papers.

5 May 2015:  Final date for official credentials to be submitted by Parties’ Representatives to the Secretariat.

A satellite-tagged Balearic Shearwater: ACAP-listed and endemic to Spain's Balearic Islands

Photograph by Henri Weimerskirch

Observer Applications

Written applications for observer status from international scientific, environmental, cultural or technical bodies should be submitted to the Secretariat at least 90 days prior to the MoP5 (3 February 2015).  Requests for observer status from any other scientific, environmental, cultural or technical bodies should be submitted to the Secretariat at least 60 days prior to the meeting (4 March 2015).

Registration

Delegates are requested to complete the registration form available on the ACAP website and to send itThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible, to assist the Secretariat in making preparations for the meeting.

Provisional Agenda

In accordance with the requirements of MoP Rule of Procedure 14(3), Parties are requested to forward any additional agenda items to the Secretariat prior to the opening of the first session of MoP5, for inclusion in a supplementary provisional agenda.

Accommodation

A block booking of 45 rooms has been made with the Grand Hotel Mencey from 3 - 9 May, 2015.  These rooms will be held until 3 March 2015.  After this date any reservation made will be subject to availability at the hotel and the best available room rate at the time the reservation is made.   Delegates wishing to make a reservation should complete the attached registration form and return it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Please do not make your reservations directly through the hotel website.

Warren Papworth, ACAP Executive Secretary, 21 November 2014

Applications are sought for research and project funding that will assist the Albatross and Petrel Agreement meet its objective of achieving and maintaining a favourable conservation status for albatrosses and petrels.  Total funding of c. AUD 80 000 is available for allocation from the Advisory Committee (AC) Work Programme budget in 2014-15.

Applications must be submitted on an ACAP Small Grants Application Form, available from the home page on the ACAP website.

When assessing project applications, preference will be given to projects that address elements of the AC Work Programme (see AC8 Doc 16 Rev 3) and any research priorities identified by the AC Working Groups (see AC8 Doc 11 and AC8 Doc 12 Rev 1).

Innovative proposals making a substantive contribution to the Agreement’s objective will also be considered.

At risk from mice: a female Tristan Albatross incubates on Gough Island, photograph by John Cooper

Applicants are encouraged to contact the relevant Working Group Convenor or the Advisory Committee Chair to discuss the development and relevance of their application to ensure it addresses the requirements of the AC Work Programme.

Applications open on 19 November 2014 and close on 14 January 2015.  Completed applications are to be submitted to relevant ACAP National Contact Points.  Applications from international organisations may be submitted directly to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

National Contact Points and international organisations are asked to check that all required sections are included in any applications, prior to submission to ACAP.  It is desirable that applications are submitted in English in order to limit translation costs; however submissions in any other Agreement language will also be accepted.

Applicants will be advised of the outcome of their applications by 27 April 2015.

ACAP Secretariat, 20 November 2014

 The Governments of Kiribati and the USA have signed a Cooperative Arrangement to coordinate and jointly support research and conservation activities in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) in the United States and the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) in Kiribati.  The agreement was signed as part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Parks Congress, being held this month in Sydney, Australia (click here).

“The arrangement strengthens cooperative management of the two protected areas, collectively called the Phoenix Ocean Arc, that make up a wide swath of the Pacific, including entire island ecosystems, coral reefs, seamounts and marine areas.  Collaborative activities may include scientific research, law enforcement, the removal of shipwrecks, conservation of seabirds and eradication of non-native species, such as rats from atolls.”

The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, first declared in 2009, was expanded to nearly 1.27 million km² in September this year (click here).  Kiribati established PIPA in 2008 to protect 408 250² km in the central Pacific.  PIPA was recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2010.  The Kiribati Government recently announced the closure of PIPA to commercial fishing from 1 January 2015 (click here).

A Laysan Albatross chick on Wake Atoll, photograph by R, Wheeler

A few ACAP-listed Laysan Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed P. nigripes Albatrosses have occasionally bred on Wake Atoll within the PRIMNM.  PIPA does not support any currently listed ACAP species but a number of other procellariiforms breed, including Audubon’s Puffinus lherminieri and Christmas P. nativitatus Shearwaters (click here).

Read more on the Phoenix Ocean Arc here.

Selected Literature:

Rauzon, M.J., Boyle, D., Everett, W.T. & Gilardi, J. 2008.  The status of the birds of Wake Atoll.  Atoll Research Bulletin No. 561.  41 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 November 2014

Leigh Gurney (Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) has been awarded a PhD for her research on the marine ecosystem of South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.  Marion and Prince Edward Islands that form the group support nine regularly-breeding species of albatrosses and petrels that are listed within ACAP.

The thesis abstract follows:

“This study brings together the wealth of data available for the Prince Edward Islands marine ecosystem and consolidates it into a network, mass-balanced model (using Ecopath).  Biomass estimates for the land based top predators show penguins dominate the system for all three time periods assessed (1960s, 1980s and 2000s).  The islands appear to have a carrying capacity which may be declining.  A consumption model shows a change in prey for the land based top predators from one in which both crustaceans and myctophid fish were of equal importance in the 1960s, to one dominated by myctophids for the 2000s period.  The contribution of the sources of primary production were assessed through the ecosystem model with open ocean productivity dominating at all but the smallest scale (shelf region), where the macrophyte production was important.  The model describes the marine ecosystem for each of the above mentioned time periods at the scale of the Exclusive Economic Zone and, when compared to other subantarctic and Antarctic systems for which there are ecosystem models, the system was most similar to the neighbouring Kerguelen Islands.  An investigation into the ecosystem boundary size was conducted, with all constituents able to satisfy their energetic requirements if considered at the scale of the EEZ.  Using the dynamic temporal simulation approach (Ecosim), the model was able to successfully hindcast three past events: the fur seal exploitation, Patagonian toothfish fishery, and the effect of cat predation on small flying birds. In each instance the model performed well for the directly impacted groups.  Potential ecosystem effects of climate change were explored through simulations of increasing and decreasing productivity.  No single scenario was able to replicate observed patterns and a suite of drivers needs to be considered to reproduce observed patterns.  The inclusion of energetic density of prey led to improvements in consumption rate estimates for the static models and should be incorporated into estimates to improve ecosystem model parameterization.  The work constitutes the first ecosystem model for the PEIs that can be used as a tool for an ecosystem approach to marine resource management.”

Albatross Valley on Prince Edward Island: home of Wandering Albatrosses

Photograph by Bruce Dyer

Click here to read of a publication by Leigh Gurney from her thesis.

With thanks to Leigh Gurney for information.

References:

Gurney, L.J. 2013.  An ecosystem study of the Prince Edward Archipelago (Southern Ocean).  PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.  320 pp.

Gurney, L.J., Pakhomov, E.A. & Christensen, V. 2014.  An ecosystem model of the Prince Edward Island archipelago.  Ecological Modelling 294: 117-136.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 November 2014