Winners and losers in LIFE (and other stories from the frontline)…

Despite the inevitable disruption inflicted upon grassroots conservation projects – that require financial continuity in order to implement well-planned campaigns – funding decisions by international agencies are often susceptible to bureaucratic wrangling, deadlock and delay.

Political patronage, nationalist sentiment, vigorous lobbying, and tug-of-war opposition and support may all play a role in these convoluted processes. That might explain why, over the years, rational funding decisions have found themselves with strange, irrational bedfellows – most notably projects that have never received the support of the wider scientific and conservation community.

A revamped web site at DGXI (the EU Directorate that administers the LIFE-Nature fund) allows readers to examine the history of LIFE funding to the monk seal – ranging from habitat protection projects in Greece and Portugal, to the ECU 2 million experiment in translocation in Mauritania and the Canary Islands (http://europa.eu.int/comm/life/nature/index.htm).

These documents are also available in our own Monachus Library under the EU heading.

LIFE-Nature commitments in 1999 have proved particularly unlucky for Europe’s most endangered marine mammal. Not one monk seal conservation project has been awarded financial support through this important funding mechanism this year, a decision that now threatens the Hellenic Society for the Study & Protection of the Monk Seal (MOm) with severe project disruption (see LIFE funding rejected for new millennium, this issue).

To make matters worse, LIFE III (that is due to renew the fund) is still jammed in bureaucratic traffic, with the result that needy projects will have to try to survive without their primary funding source for up to a year and a half (http://europa.eu.int/comm/life/life3.htm).

As reported in the May issue of The Monachus Guardian, the leading Turkish NGO, SAD-AFAG, has also been in dire financial straits, having been confronted by a cut-off of WWF funding. News on the grapevine, however, suggests that this lifeline may be restored later this year as a result of EU SMAP (The Short and Medium-term Priority Environmental Action Programme) funding. While this news is undeniably welcome (if it does come to pass), events of this kind nevertheless serve to underline the needless disruption that lack of funding continuity inflicts upon vital conservation initiatives. With Greek and Turkish projects now in the middle of establishing protected areas for the species – identified as the number one conservation priority since the Rhodes International Conference in 1978 – one can only wonder at the illogical timing of decisions that disrupt or cut off the funding lifeline.

Meanwhile, another victim of the EU’s 1999 disinterest in monk seals appears to be the Spanish research and translocation project in Mauritania/Western Sahara. According to the grapevine, University of Barcelona researchers recently parted company with their erstwhile Canary Islands comrades after suspecting that the Canary contingent may have been pushing the capture and translocation scheme to promote interests in tourism rather than conservation. While The Monachus Guardian can make no comment on the matter, cynics may wonder why the writing only appeared on the Barcelona wall almost 5 years after such suspicions were originally doing the rounds. As indicated in the Mediterranean news section, the University of Barcelona team is now cooperating closely with the Mauritanian authorities in planning future research initiatives and in seeking interim funding. In the meantime, reports on the ground suggest that, in the absence of adequate financial support, the team is radically downsizing its operation in the country.

Those who have imaginative monk seal projects in need of funding may want to check out the requirements for applying for grants from LIFE-Nature and from SMAP:

For those of a more tenacious disposition, the United Nations Environment Programme web site might also provide clues on GEF (The Global Environment Facility) funding: http://unephq.unep.org/unep/gef/.

Into print

Although published in its primary form on the Internet, The Monachus Guardian is now also being made available as a hardcopy publication. With the generous financial support of the Humane Society of Canada (HSC), each volume will incorporate the publishing year’s May and November issues. While most readers will prefer to access The Monachus Guardian via the Internet (not least because of the unavoidable delays associated with traditional ink and paper publishing) this additional hardcopy version is intended to fill important gaps in our readership, and will be distributed to libraries, decision makers, and readers unable to access the journal by electronic means. Those wishing to be added to the mailing list should write to IMMA Inc. or contact the Librarian: librarian@monachus.org. Copies of Volume I are still available. Volume II is expected by January 2000.

After Valencia, monk seals in Cork?

It appears that Mediterranean monk seals may well feature in the 14th annual conference of the European Cetacean Society (ECS), to convene in Cork, Ireland in early April 2000. The ECS has been taking a growing interest in pinnipeds in recent years. The Society was a co-sponsor of the World Marine Mammal Science Conference (and its monk seal workshop) held in Monaco in January 1998. Although information arrived too late for inclusion in the May issue of The Monachus Guardian, a European Seals Workshop was also held under the auspices of the ECS in Valencia, Spain in April this year. Abstracts of the following presentations (of relevance to monk seals) were made available:

The Mediterranean monk seals in Greece: research and conservation activities.
S. Adamantopoulou, K. Anagnostopoulou, E. Androukaki, P. Dendrinos, E. Fatsea, E. Tounta, V. Zavras, S. Kotomatas. European Seals Workshop, 13th European Cetacean Society Annual Conference, Valencia, Spain, 5 April 1999.

Working with the monk seal colony of Cabo Blanco: an approach of the species.
M. Gazo.

Status and reproductive output of the Mediterranean monk seal population of Cap Blanc (Western Sahara) which survived the 1997 die-off.
M. Gazo, J. Forcada, T. Pastor, G. Cantos, E. Grau & A. Aguilar.

Use of an infrared light sensitive camera for monitoring cave-breeding seals, applications for Mediterranean monk seal conservation.
G. Mo, H. Güçlüsoy, Y. Savas & C. Sigismondi.

Implementing the Conservation Strategy for the Mediterranean monk seal in Greece.
S. Kotomatas, S. Adamantopoulou, K. Anagnostopoulou, E. Androukaki, P. Dendrinos, E. Fatsea, E. Tounta, & V. Zavras.

Monk seal study and conservation in Desertas Islands.
R. Pires & H.C. Neves.

A report on the Workshop (‘ECS SEAL WORKSHOP, VALENCIA, SPAIN, 5TH APRIL 1999’) can be found in the ECS Newsletter 34, available online at: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.W.Broekema/ecs/ecs-news34.htm.

Further updates on the ECS conference in Cork will be available in due course on the following web site: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.W.Broekema/ecs/.