Bonn, 6 October 2010 – At its17th Meeting held 4-6 October 2010 at the Secretariat’s premises in Bonn, Germany, the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee (AC) agreed on the implementation of conservation actions and research projects.

Among the decisions made at this meeting are the establishment of intersessional working groups for the Conservation Plan for Harbour Porpoises in the North Sea, on bycatch and on noise. Further, a Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) Plan for the Agreement was adopted. Four projects were selected which would receive funding from ASCOBANS resources, covering an inventory of harbour porpoise presence in the Russian Baltic, a feasibility study on the creation of a common web-accessed strandings database, an investigation of pollutant exposure in coastal top predators and a study on harbour porpoise and fishery interactions in the North West Iberian peninsula.

The AC provides advice and information to the Parties and the Secretariat between the sessions of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP), where also the work plan for the triennium gets agreed. Nine of the ten member states to the Agreement were represented at the AC17 Meeting, as well as eight non-governmental organizations and several invited experts.

It was the last meeting to be presided over by the team Stefan Bräger (Germany) as Chair and Jan Haelters (Belgium) as Vice-Chair. After three successful meetings, they have passed the responsibility to Sami Hassani (France) as the new Chair and Penina Blankett (Finland) as Vice-Chair, who will lead the Committee starting with its 18th Meeting in 2011.

A list of action points and decisions, as adopted by Parties at the end of the meeting, can be accessed here.