The Eleventh Meeting (AC11) of the Agreement’s Advisory Committee is being held on the island of Santa Caterina in Brazil this week.  As well as nine of the 13 Parties to the Agreement represented at the meeting, attendees have come from three “range-state nations” which are not Parties but which have breeding populations of, or are visited by, ACAP-listed species.  These are Canada, Namibia and the USA, all of which have been represented at ACAP meetings for some years.  At the meeting both Namibia and the USA gave updates on their progress towards becoming ACAP Parties; the USA reporting on a hearing this year in its House of Representatives (click here).

A new observer is Chinese Taipei, a member economy of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).  Chinese Taipei has a high-seas fishing fleet which can venture into the at-sea ranges of ACAP-listed species.

Observers from Chinese Taipei with ACAP's Information Officer.  From left: Julia Hsian-Wen Huang, John Cooper, Ling-Ling Chen, Yi-Chun Fan &  David Lai

Chinese Taipei takes up its observer seats at the opening of ACAP's Advisory Committee

Another new observer is The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, represented by Ebone Blyden of the Ministry of Environment and Housing.  The Bahamas is a range state for a number of species of shearwaters, petrels and storm petrels (click here).

NGO observers at the meeting include Humane Society International and Brazil’s Projeto Albatroz.  Unlike at previous Advisory Committee meetings, BirdLife International is not attending AC11, although it did attend last week’s working group meetings.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 May 2019

Yesterday saw the start of the Eleventh Meeting (AC11) of the Agreement’s Advisory Committee in Brazil.  The meeting is being held over four days this week in the Jurerê Il Campanario Hotel in the Jurerê Internacional beach resort at the northern end of Santa Catarina Island in the municipality of Florianópolis.

The meeting was formally opened by Marília Guimarães Marini, Head of the Department of Conservation and Species Management, Ministry of the Environment of Brazil (Diretora do Departamento de Conservação e Manejo de Espécies do Ministério do Meio Ambiente do Brasil).

Tatiana Neves, Advisory Committee Vice-chair; Nathan Walker, Advisory Committee Chair and Christine Bogle, ACAP Executive Secretary,

listen to Marília Guimarães Marini give her opening address

Ms Marini’s address to AC11 follows:

“Ladies and gentleman,

I would like to welcome all of you and thank you for your presence. It is a great honour for Brazil to host for the second time the Advisory Committee Meeting of the ACAP to discuss a subject that is very dear to us - the conservation of albatrosses and petrels.

Brazil has a history of active participation in several agreements for the conservation of biodiversity, the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels among them. Brazilian participation in ACAP started since before it came into effect, since the first preparatory meeting, in 2000.

Brazil's participation in ACAP is of fundamental importance for national fisheries management and the conservation of species of albatrosses threatened with extinction. Of the 22 species of albatrosses that are covered by the Agreement 10 feed in Brazilian waters, of which 5 are in the national red list.

The participation of Brazil in the ACAP helped us to build up legal regulations and scientific research on issues relevant to the conservation of marine biodiversity. The Brazilian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation - ICMBio - has been implementing the National Plan of Action for the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (Plano Nacional para a Conservação de Albatrozes e Petréis, PLANACAP, click here) the objective of coordinating actions for mitigation and reduction of the main threats for the conservation of these species.  This Plan is the main national management tool to implement ACAP guidelines and both of them are interdependent in order to ensure higher quality work and effectiveness of the actions.  ACAP is considered by articulators and collaborators of PLANACAP as an important instrument for the ongoing effort to qualify, finance and bring together all Brazilian and international governmental and non-governmental initiatives related to the conservation of these long-lived and unique ocean birds. At this point, I would to congratulate Patricia Serafini for her excellent work, especially in coordination of the PLANACAP, and Tatiana Neves, for her lifetime dedication to the conservation of albatrosses.  Both of them have an active and passionate role in ACAP.

There is no chance for us to succeed in the conservation of albatrosses and petrels without international coordination of activities.  The efforts we make in the feeding areas in Brazil will have a profound effect on the conservation efforts that the partner countries will have in the breeding areas. This coordination of activities is crucial if we are to reverse the drastic decline in some migratory populations of albatrosses and petrels, which unfortunately are one of the most endangered groups of seabirds in the world. Threats such as bycatch of these birds on longline fisheries, invasive alien species, diseases in the colonies where these birds breed in addition to other emerging issues such as ocean pollution, marine debris, especially the ingestion of plastic by seabirds, have also been addressed here under the Agreement, and the results of this work will benefit the conservation efforts of all countries present here today.

Finally, I wish you a pleasant stay and a productive week, and also thank you on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment for the wonderful work that you [are] developing at ACAP.

Thank you.”

Brazilian delegates Igor Brito Silva, Thaís Coutinho & Patricia Pereira Serafini with Tatiana Neves, AC Vice-chair; Marília Guimarães Marini; Christine Bogle, ACAP Executive Secretary & Nathan Walker, AC Chair

Delegates marked Ms Marini's address with a round of applause after which AC Chair Nathan Walker and Vice-chair Tatian Neves offered their own thanks.

Following a productive first day’s discussions, the meeting adjourned mid-afternoon to allow delegates to read working group reports preperatory to their presentation and discussion by the Advisory Committee.   A ‘folkloric’ event after some welcome cooling rain in the evening rounded off the day.

Scary?  A bull gives ACAP's Information Officer the eye at the evening's entertainment

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 14 May 2019

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement is holding its annual meetings in Brazil this year at Jurerê Internacional on the northern end of Santa Catarina Island in the municipality of Florianópolis.  Last week was spent with meetings of the Population and Conservation Working Group (PaCSWG5) and the Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG9).  This week ACAP's Advisory Committee meets for the eleventh time (AC11), when, inter alia, it will hear and consider reports from the two working groups.

Over the intervening weekend delegates took time to read and comment on drafts of the two working group reports. Many also took the opportunity to explore their surroundings, including two sandy beaches excellent for bathers, walkers and runners alike (Praia de Jurerê and Praia do Forte) and an eighteenth century fortress,  Fortaleza São José da Ponta Grossa, that overlooks the sea on a forested headland between the two beaches.

The back wall of the Fortaleza São José da Ponta Grossa

Half way through a dawn run on Praia de Jurerê Johan de Goede (South Africa) pauses for the camera

On Sunday, the meetings' Brazilian host (and a Vice-convenor of the PaCSWG) Patricia Pereira Serafini of the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade led an outing to the Lagoa da Conceição, a large lake in the island's interior.  After a short drive some 20 of us took a water taxi and travelled north for 40 minutes or so along the lake's western boundary, past windsurfers out on the water to stop number 16 at a small village inacessible by road that is popular with tourists.  Here we first visited a small waterfall on the lake's forested slope and then took lunch in a lake-side restaurant on grilled fillets of Bluefish or Anchova (in Brazil) Pomatomus saltatrix (also known as Shad or Elf in South Africa) along with chips and rice.  The return journey on calm waters ended a most pleasant day, on which delegates could relax and regain their energies for the four days of discussion ahead.

Sunday outing participants gather on the steps of the meeting hotel Il Campanario

Fitting for some of us to travel in a Projeto Albatroz vehicle, decorated with a flying Black-browed Albatross

Not a big waterfall, but peaceful enough among the trees

Tucking into a generous lunch: this table did not manage to empty all its dishes ...

A post-prandial atmosphere in the water taxi on our return prevailed

Photographs by Jéssica Branco, Projeto Albatroz and John Cooper.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 May 2019

Today is World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD). World Migratory Bird Day is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It has a global outreach and is considered an effective tool to help raise global awareness of the threats faced by migratory birds, their ecological importance, and the need for international cooperation to conserve them.

This year the chosen theme is “Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution”.  ACAP is supporting this theme by making the following statement which was featured on the WMBD’s website on 10 March, along with statements from other key World Migratory Bird Day supporters and partners from around the world (click here).

“Albatrosses and their kin are pelagic seabirds which mainly breed on remote oceanic islands and forage over the open sea. They can travel enormous distances across oceans during foraging flights and migratory journeys, crossing international boundaries and venturing onto the High Seas.  They feed on live prey or by scavenging at or near the sea surface.  Unfortunately, all the species so far studied are prone to seizing and ingesting pieces of floating plastic.  A wide range of such items has been found in their stomachs, from plastic bags, toothbrushes, cigarette lighters, plastic straws, bottle tops and toy soldiers to fragments of latex balloons and Styrofoam, and even the sole of a shoe: the list seems endless.  Concern has also been expressed at the harmful effects of chemicals that may leach out of swallowed plastic.

Ingested plastic can be fed to chicks by regurgitation from their parents, accumulating in stomachs, leading to a false feeling of satiation that could cause fledging underweight with a lower chance of subsequent survival.  Larger plastic pieces ingested can cause injury to the alimentary canal.  Birds can starve to death if foraging or swallowing prey is overly hindered by ingested plastic.

Solving the problem of plastic ingestion by seabirds needs a broad-based approach, tackling marine litter at source and reducing single-use plastic.  ACAP will continue to support studies of plastic pollution in albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters and will continue to draw attention to the problem through its website and by Facebook postings.”

Whereas plastic ingestion can cause harm at the individual level as described in the above statement, its effects at the population level are harder to judge and require further studies.

Plastic items (including a cigarette lighter) withn the cavity of a decomposing Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis chick on Midway Atoll

Photograph by Chris Jordan

Christine Bogle, ACAP Executive Secretary & John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 May 2019