Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems Project

For the 5th Biennial GEF International Waters Conference being held in Cairns, Australia, 26-29 October 2009, we have produced a special "Update" edition of our newsletter, ASCLME News, covering some of the progress the ASCLME Project has made since the publication of the first edition of ASCLME News.

If you would like to read this special issue, a pdf is available from here.

In it, you will find a series of quicklinks:

• http://www.asclme.org/update/info/
• http://www.asclme.org/update/data/
• http://www.asclme.org/update/tdasap/
• http://www.asclme.org/update/communication/
• http://www.asclme.org/oceanobs09/

which give futher information on the progress the ASCLME Project is making and covers some of the exciting partnerships we are building.

You might also like to visit the ASCLME Cruise Blog, http://www.asclme.org/blog/ for updates from the Nansen Cruise.

At the conference, the ASCLME Project and some of its initiatives are being displayed as part of a what we are calling the "GEF western Indian Ocean Large Marine Ecosystems Partnership" (GEF WIOLMEP), a suite of four GEF-funded projects active in the region - namely ASCLME, SWIOFP, WIO-LaB and the Seamounts Project. We previously used the term "ASCLME Programme" to refer to the first three projects and are pleased to welcome the IUCN-administered Seamounts Project to the group. All four are working together towards the implementation of a large marine ecosystem approach to management of marine and coastal resources in the region and developing mechanisms to extend this to the high seas.