Vol. 10 (1): June 2007

Antalya conference report released

On 22 December Tunis-based RAC/SPA, nominally administrators of the UN Action Plan for the Monk Seal, released its report on September’s controversial monk seal conference in Antalya, Turkey. The report is available for download following the link below:

RAC/SPA. 2006. Report of the international conference on monk seal conservation, Antalya, Turkey, September 2006. United Nations Environment Programme, Mediterranean Action Plan, Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas: 1-69. [PDF 753KB]

In a trend that has become depressingly familiar at RAC/SPA, the report does little to reflect the diverse opinions, concerns and criticisms heard in and around the conference.

For further background and conference impressions, please turn to November’s Cover Story in The Monachus Guardian, Anatomy of a Conference.

Library update

For those interested in international efforts to preserve the Mediterranean monk seal in the Atlantic – an issue covered in various back issues of The Monachus Guardian – we are now able to make the full 2005 Action Plan available for download in the Monk Seal Library.

CMS. Convention on the conservation of migratory species of wild animals. 2005. Action Plan for the Recovery of the Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus) in the Eastern Atlantic. Prepared by the Working Group of the Mediterranean Monk Seal in the Eastern Atlantic for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (Bonn Convention): 1-104. [PDF  3.9 MB]

Revision of Mediterranean monk seal conservation strategy

MOm, the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk seal, a Greek non-governmental environmental organisation, is seeking to contract, through a competitive tender, an independent Conservation Specialist to evaluate and revise the National Strategy for the Conservation of the Mediterranean Monk Seal in Greece.

With a worldwide population of fewer than 600 individuals, the Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus is considered by IUCN to be critically endangered. During the last decades numerous conservation activities have concentrated in Greece, since it hosts approximately half of the species’ population. The Conservation Specialist’s tasks will be:

• to evaluate the existing Strategy, originally drafted in 1996, in terms of its effectiveness to address the species’ threats
• to revise the Strategy, so as to address all current conservation requirements of the species and its habitat, identify priorities and suggest cost effective future actions covering the period up until 2015.

The project’s duration is 9 months.

MOm will provide to the selected conservation specialist all background documentation and information required, and will assist in setting up working meetings with key stakeholders, experts, and the relevant national and European Commission authorities. The revised Strategy will be widely distributed to scientists, conservationists, stakeholders, and policy makers internationally. Upon its adoption by the National authorities it will constitute a seminal policy tool guiding all activities conducted for the conservation of the species.

Applicants should have extended experience in similar projects and significant knowledge of the conservation requirements of critically endangered species. For a detailed description and the terms of reference of the project, applicants should contact Dr. Spyros Kotomatas, MOm’s Scientific Coordinator at the address below. Applications should be forwarded with the indication (IC07-NCS) to no later than the 15th of September 2007.

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