Simplified Chinese. An Endangered Northern Royal Albatross stands over its chick at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head, New Zealand, photograph by Oscar Thomas

NOTE.  this is Day Four of 'WADWEEK2023'.

Completing its outreach to Asian high-seas fisheries as part of this year’s World Albatross Day on 19 June, the Albatross and Petrel Agreement is today releasing its set of 12 freely downloadable ‘WAD2023’ photo posters in the Chinese language, in both Simplified and Traditional character sets. This latest release follows poster sets in Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. Previously, the poster set has been made available in ACAP’s three official languages of English, French and Spanish, as well as in Portuguese. The ‘WAD2023’ logo is also available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and in the other seven languages (click here).

The World Albatross Day logo for 2023 in Traditional Chinese

View and download the WAD2023 photo posters in their Chinese and in the other seven language versions here. They are also available in individual language albums on the ACAP Facebook page.

Traditional Chinese. Adolescent Endangered Northern Royal Albatrosses at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head, New Zealand, photograph by Sharyn Broni 

Simplified Chinese is the character set used on the mainland within the People's Republic of China. Traditional Chinese is used within Chinese Taipei (and in Hong Kong). Neither is a Party to the Agreement, although the latter attends ACAP meetings as an Observer in the capacity of a Member Economy of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC).

China and Chinese Taipei both have fisheries that interact with ACAP-listed species, notably through its high-seas longline fisheries for tuna in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Chinese Taipei is a member (as the Fishing Entity of Taiwan) of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) and (as the fishing entity of Chinese-Taipei) of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). China is a Contracting Party to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) and to the WCPFC. All these Regional Fisheries Management Organizations that manage high-seas tuna stocks (tRFMOs) have adopted seabird bycatch mitigation measures that apply to their member states and entities.

ACAP has made its Seabird Bycatch Mitigation Fact Sheets and ACAP Seabird Bycatch ID Guide available in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

It is hoped the photo posters can be used within China and Chinese Taipei, as elsewhere by Asian high-seas fisheries, in increasing awareness of the conservation plight being faced by albatrosses and petrels.

With grateful thanks to Scott Pursner for providing and checking translations.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 16 June 2023

 
NOTE:  This is article #3 of 'WADWEEK2023'.  Follow them all until World Albatross Day on 19 June.

A new infographic in the ACAP Species series has been produced for the globally Endangered and Nationally Vulnerable Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi. The latest infographic has been sponsored by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) and joins infographics previously produced for 11 albatross species. Along with three other albatross species, the Northern Royal Albatross has been chosen to feature World Albatross Day on 19 June this year with its theme of “Plastic Pollution”.

The infographic has been produced in the three ACAP official languages of English, French and Spanish. The ACAP Species Infographic series has been designed to help inform the general public, including school learners, of the threats faced by albatrosses and what is being and can be done to combat them. They serve to complement the more detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments, the concise and illustrated ACAP Species Summaries and the ACAP Photo Essay series.

All the 12 infographics produced to date may be freely downloaded at a high resolution to allow for printing professionally in two poster sizes (approximately A2 and A3). Please note they are only being made available for personal use or when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels – when ACAP will be pleased to receive a mention. They should not be used for personal gain.

English and Portuguese language versions of infographics are available to download here, whilst French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under, Infographies sur les espèces and Infographía sobres las especies.

The ACAP Species Infographics have all been created by Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim from Bangkok. Namo is a graduate of the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design. With thanks to ‘Pep’ Arcos, Karine Delord, Johannes Fischer and Chris Robertson for their help with the texts.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 15 June 2023

'Plastic Lament', Black-footed Albatross family, by Patricia Latas

NOTE:  It's Day 2  of "WADWEEK2023", marking World Albatross Day on 19 June and its theme of "Plastic Pollution".

Six posters featuring selected artworks produced by Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) have been chosen from a total of 75 artworks by 31 artists in a collaboration with ACAP for World Albatross Day 2023. 

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement has chosen the theme "Plastic Pollution" to mark the fourth World Albatross Day, to be celebrated on 19 June 2023. This follows the inaugural theme “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020, “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” in 2021, and “Climate Change” last year.

Albatrosses are affected by a range of pollutants, of which plastics, whether ingested and then fed to chicks or causing entanglements, are certainly the most visible and well known to the general public. However, albatrosses face other significant pollutants, including heavy metals, (such as mercury) and POPs (persistent organic pollutants, such as insecticides).

‘A Mother’s Inadvertent Actions’, Laysan Albatrosses by 13-year-old Izzy Niesen

Two new albatross species are being used to feature the theme for this year’s World Albatross Day. These are the globally Endangered Northern Royal Albatross D. sanfordi, endemic to New Zealand, and the abundant and widespread Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris. In addition, coverage is being given again to last year’s featured species, the Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses of the North Pacific, which ingest more plastic (and then feed it to their chicks) than do the southern hemisphere species.

‘Trojan Horse’, Northern Royal Albatross by Holly Parsons

The posters, that all depict plastic pollution affecting albatrosses, are available to download from the ACAP website here, in the three ACAP official languages of English, French and Spanish, as well as in Portuguese, for printing during the build up to World Albatross Day on 19 June. ACAP requests it be acknowledged in their use for conservation purposes. They should not be used for financial gain.

 
"Plastic Pollution’, Black-footed Albatross by Grisselle Chock

Click here to view a set of 12 WAD2023 photo posters in nine languages.

With grateful thanks to ABUN artists Grisselle Chock, Patricia Latas, Izzy (Isabella) Niesen, Holly Parsons, Snah and Rosana Venturini and to ABUN Co-founder Kitty Harvill and ABUN Administrator Marion Schön for their support of albatross conservation. Thanks also to 'Pep' Arcos, Karine Delord and Patricia Serafini for help with translations.  Poster design by Bree Forrer, ACAP Communications Advisor.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 14 June 2023

 
Plastic pieces form a Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis, a featured species for this year’s World Albatross Day.
Artwork by Jennifer Urmston using fragments collected on the windward shores of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, courtesy of David Hyrenbach

NOTE:  This ACAP Latest News post kicks off seven days of "WADWEEK2023", marking World Albatross Day on 19 June and its theme of "Plastic Pollution".

Bonnie Hamilton (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Canada) and colleagues have published a review in Cambridge Prisms: Plastics that considers opportunities for monitoring plastic pollution using seabirds and multilateral agreements (one of which is ACAP).

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Seabirds have been the messengers of marine plastics pollution since the 1950s, not long after plastics began to be commercially manufactured. In the decades since, a number of multilateral agreements have emerged to address marine plastics pollution that have been informed by research and monitoring on plastic ingestion in seabirds. Seabirds continue to serve as effective monitors for plastics pollution in the oceans, and increasingly of the chemical contamination from the marine environment as plastic additives and chemicals can adsorb and accumulate in seabirds’ tissues. Plastics pollution has far-reaching ecological impacts, but the motivation for addressing the issue has escalated rapidly at the international level. Seabirds are also the most globally threatened group of birds and require concerted conservation actions to mitigate population declines from multiple pressures. However, most policy mechanisms focus on the monitoring and mitigation of anthropogenically induced stressors, using seabird data, and often fail to include mechanisms to conserve the messengers. In this review, we discuss how research on the impacts of plastics on seabirds is used to inform policy and highlight the competing interests of monitoring and conservation that emerge from this approach. Finally, we discuss policy opportunities to ensure seabirds can continue to be the indicators of ocean health and simultaneously achieve conservation goals.”

From the publication. Note that ACAP is an international agreement, not a regional body as shown here, although it is properly treated in the text

Reference:

Hamilton, B.M., Clark, B.L. & Borelle, S.B. 2023. Monitoring to conservation: the science–policy nexus of plastics and seabirds. Cambridge Prisms: Plastics, 1, e3, 1–8. doi.org/10.1017/plc.2023.2.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 13 June 2023