A detailed Conservation Plan to accompany the Memorandum of Understanding was concluded in English and French, following extensive discussion and revision in two working groups which, for practical reasons, were organized along linguistic lines. The francophone and anglophone groups were facilitated by Jacques Fretey and Jack Frazier, respectively, in their capacity as resource persons. The groups met several times during the first three days of the meeting, as well as in two lengthy evening sessions. The time required to complete the Plan was a reflection of how much progress had been made in implementing the Memorandum of Understanding since it came into effect three years ago under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species.The revision process was highly inclusive, contributing to a strong sense of ownership among participants. The Secretariat was assigned the task of merging the outputs of the working groups.

The meeting agreed the content and format of a template for national reports, mirroring the content of the Conservation Plan. The Secretariat is charged with finalizing the presentational aspects of the report format and circulating it in the coming weeks, with a view to soliciting the first formal reports from Signatory States by 30 September.

Progress was made towards the development of strategy for identifying potential funding sources for marine turtle conservation activities, from a wide range of local, national and international donors. Mark Rennie (Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program), who chaired the working group, has offered to collaborate with the Secretariat to develop a Web- and paper-based resource that would match funding requests to potential donors, based in part on experience gained to date.

A highlight of the meeting was the closing ceremony which featured the signature of the MoU by representatives of a further five Range States -- Angola, Morocco, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Sierra Leone -- bringing to 17 the total number of States participating in the Memorandum. Thereafter, the Kenyan Minister of Environment, H.E. Joseph Kamotho, was invited to sign the corresponding Memorandum of Understanding for the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia – making Kenya the eleventh signatory of that CMS instrument.

As part of the ceremony, David Olendo, the chair of the Kenya Sea Turtle Conservation Committee (KESCOM) gave a demonstration of a Turtle Excluder Device (TED), a metal frame with rungs that fits into a shrimp trawl net and which allows for inadvertently caught marine turtles to escape. The TED had been donated for the occasion by the United States National Marine Fisheries Service. Following the demonstration, Minister Okopido symbolically transferred the TED on behalf of the Signatory States of the Atlantic MoU to his Kenyan counterpart, on behalf of the IOSEA MoU Signatory States. The timing of the event was particularly appropriate for Nigeria, which had been certified only days earlier by the United States Government as complying with that country's programme requiring the use of TEDs in order to be allowed to export or market shrimp to the USA.

The Nairobi Declaration was presented to the Meeting in its final form by Minister Okopido. Among other things, the Declaration draws attention to the problem of marine turtle by-catch in industrial fishing operations and emphasizes the importance of involving resident communities in the development and implementation of conservation activities. It welcomes the positive indications from Spain and France -- the latter being a major sponsor of the MoU's development -- to consider joining the MoU, and calls upon the eight non-signatory Range States to become members as soon as possible. The Declaration also encourages links with other conventions, intergovernmental bodies and NGOs, and seeks the integration of marine turtle conservation measures within the emerging African Process for the Development and Protection of the Marine and Coastal Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.