How you use monachus.org

In December 1999 we began using an online statistics programme to provide some indication of how www.monachus.org is being used by the public. In the period since then, the average trend in visitor numbers shows a clear increase, subject to seasonal fluctuations.

During the last two years, average visitor numbers have almost doubled, reaching 211 per day in May 2001. On the 15th of the same month, 357 people visited the site, the highest ever recorded in a single day.

Surges in visitor numbers generally coincide with publication of TMG in May and November, but also with school semesters. Many visitors look for general information on the monk seal and visit the Monachus Profiles section, but TMG remains the main attraction. Increasingly, readers – rather than browsing through the journal online – are downloading it as a PDF file from the Monachus Library. The first six issues have been requested between 1200 and 4100 times each in this way.

Another “best seller” in the Library is “The Mediterranean Monk Seal – Conservation Guidelines” with over 3400 downloads so far, followed by “Captive Breeding and the Mediterranean Monk Seal – A Focus on Antibes Marineland” with 1500.

Reader interest is also evident in the environmental impact of mass tourism around the Mediterranean, as reflected by increasing downloads of publications such as the WWF Mediterranean Programme brochure “Responsible Tourism in the Mediterranean – Current Threats and Opportunities” which has so far been requested 820 times.

Those who have written or published papers, posters, reports or other works relating to monk seals are encouraged to lodge their work with the Monachus Library, thereby making it available to a wider international audience. If you have material you would like to place in the Library, please contact: librarian@monachus.org. – Matthias Schnellmann, monachus.org.


Workshop attracts international attention

Despite current international political tensions, organisers expect over 60 participants from 11 or more countries to attend the Population and Habitat Viability Assessment Workshop (PHVA) in Valsaín, Segovia, Spain, 10-13 November 2001.

The Workshop will focus on efforts to implement a regional recovery plan for Monachus monachus in the Eastern Atlantic, integrating conservation actions by range states under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species, or Bonn Convention [see Mauritania & Western Sahara news, TMG 4 (1): May 2001]. The Plan, linking conservation efforts by Madeira (Portugal), the Canary Islands (Spain), Morocco and Mauritania, is being coordinated by Dr. Luis Mariano González of Spain’s Ministry of the Environment.

Key components include:

• Creating a network of new and existing marine protected areas.
• Regulating fishing activities that affect seals or their food sources, including the legal requirement that fishing techniques employed must reduce the risk of incidental capture in fishing gear.
• Rescue, rehabilitation and reintroduction of “at-risk pups”.
• Encouraging the monk seal’s return to historical habitat more favourable for pup survival – mainly open beaches sheltered from waves and terrestrial predators.
• Ensuring tranquillity in breeding and resting areas by restricting access to monk seal caves, including regulation of research activities.
• Social assistance schemes to help local, artisanal fishermen.
• Non-invasive research that will step up data gathering and continue to monitor monk seal populations and habitat.
• Environmental education and public awareness to bring the conservation message to local people.

As indicated in previous issues of TMG, some aspects of the Plan have proved highly controversial to certain sectors of the scientific community, not least of all the commitment to eradicate invasive research in monk seal habitat, and the proposal to pre-emptively remove pups from caves during storm warnings in an attempt to reduce high infant mortality. In part, the Valsaín Workshop is being convened expressly to debate and address such concerns.

Reports on the status of the species in the region will be presented by representatives from Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal and Spain, followed by a presentation on the latest draft of the recovery plan, now known as the Action Plan for the Mediterranean Monk Seal in the Eastern Atlantic. The meeting is then scheduled to break up into Working Group sessions to debate scientific, technical and political issues in greater detail.

Reflecting a growing recognition that monk seal conservation is truly an international affair that demands concerted international action, the Workshop will also expand its scope beyond the Eastern Atlantic region. Conference presentations are scheduled on the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Plan and the Mediterranean Monk Seal Action Plan in Greece.

Further information on the Workshop can be obtained from Fundación CBD-Hábitat, Madrid.

A full report on the Workshop will appear in our next issue.


Valencia online

As indicated in our last issue [France peddles lost cause, TMG 4(1): May 2001], participants of the April 2001 RAC/SPA (Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas) meeting in Valencia, Spain, roundly defeated an attempt by France and members of the Secretariat itself, to resurrect the controversial cause of Mediterranean monk seal captive breeding. Working group members were of the opinion that in situ conservation measures still hold the best hope for the survival of the species.

The report of the meeting, finally obtained by TMG from sources other than RAC/SPA, states in part: “The Coordinator of the Working Group reported on the group’s deliberations, stressing that there had been general agreement not to support the Secretariat’s proposal [to institute captive breeding], as it was considered to be premature, since participants believed that all the other measures for the conservation of the Monk seal had not been implemented.”

An electronic version of the report is available for download in the Monachus Library in PDF format:

RAC/SPA. 2001. Report of the fifth meeting of national focal points for specially protected areas, Valencia, Spain, 23-26 April 2001. United Nations Environment Programme. Mediterranean Action Plan. Regional Activity Center for Specially Protected Areas, Tunis: 1-142.


Symposium cancelled in Sardinia

Security scares and negative impacts on international travel have been blamed for the postponement of the 2001 International Symposium on Society & Resource Management, to have convened in La Maddalena National Park, Sardinia, 7-11 November. Co-hosted by the University of Sassari and Colorado State University, a central theme of the conference was to have been "Global Challenges of Parks and Protected Area Management", with issues such as management and guarding, alternative economic opportunities and ecotourism all becoming major talking points. Despite a scheduling conflict with the Population and Habitat Viability Assessment Workshop in Segovia, Spain [see Workshop attracts international attention, above], the Symposium was expected to be of significant interest to segments of the monk seal conservation community, particularly those responsible for remedying serious management failures in existing protected areas in the Mediterranean. Indeed, a monk seal workshop within the Symposium, coordinated by Prof. Federico Niccolini of the University of Pisa, had been expected to focus on such issues.

The organisers have recently expressed their intention to reschedule the Symposium for October 2002. Further information is available at the ISSRM web site: http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/nrrt/ssrm.