Archived News

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement's honorary Information Officer, John Cooper, was honoured earlier this month by the Pacific Seabird Group with a Lifetime Achievement Award at its 39th Annual Meeting in Oahu, Hawaii (click here).

In the presentation address by Alan Burger, an old colleague of John's at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa but now based in Canada, mention was made of ACAP and the information service it provides to the community through ACAP Latest News.  John's role as Founding Editor of the international journal Marine Ornithology was also mentioned.

John Cooper receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Seabird Group Chair, Pat Jodice
John presents his hosts in Hawaii, Eric Vanderwerf and Lindsay Young,with a copy of his co-authored book on South Africa's Prince Edward Islands

While attending the PSG's meeting John presented one of three plenary lectures with the title "Conservation and Restoration of Islands in the Southern Ocean".

The presentation's abstract follows:

"The islands of the Southern Ocean are among the World's most pristine habitats, supporting largely intact ecosystems. They support significant seabird populations, many endemic, some globally threatened. Nearly all have no permanent human populations and land-use activities are restricted. Most are legally protected as nature reserves with management plans and several are either World Heritage Sites or Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance. However, despite their natural attributes and isolation far from the main centres of human occurrence and activity, Southern Ocean islands and their biota face serious threats, including from climate change and from introduced animals and plants. Threats from commercial fisheries are affecting some of the most charismatic members of their biota, the large procellariiform seabirds. Most Southern Ocean islands are well studied, including their avifauna. Recent and current research on and around the islands is largely directed at gaining information of value towards conservation.  In addition, and increasingly in recent years, actions are being taken, and being planned, to contribute towards the restoration of the islands' ecosystems and biota. Such activities include eradication of introduced species and improved biosecurity to reduce the risks of new invasions on land, and efforts to reduce avian bycatch in both longline and trawl fisheries at sea. In contrast climate-change effects cannot be ameliorated directly, and so are unlikely to be addressed within a human time-scale. As a consequence some local extinctions may occur. Only a few countries possess Southern Ocean islands and there remains scope for increased international collaboration in their management."

With thanks to Vivian Mendenhall for the photographs.

22 February 2012